Everton v Birmigham

…but with our dip in form and Birmingham's win over Blackburn in midweek this game is anything but an easy three points.

And Birmingham will be fighting for the points as they now sit in 17^th on level points with Portsmouth and three points ahead of West Brom. And, if I was a Birmingham fan, I'd want to be playing a team like Everton at this stage of the season.

Moysie can deny it all he wants but it's clear that all the fight has gone out of the team. It's not just a case of us missing Arteta because we're not even doing the basics, like closing teams down and making forward runs to create space. It looks like, to paraphrase the Dome, summer's on the way and they've all got their flip flops on. Whilst we all sit there like silly buggers arguing amongst ourselves about what's gone wrong and who's to blame.

No doubt at some stage during the game people will start moaning about ‘Dithering Dave'. This will happen when Mikael Forssell either leaves Naysmith for dead for the eighteenth time or, god forbid, he actually scores. Then you'll get all the usual suspects going on about how we've needed a striker all season and Forssell could've done a job for us. Well, he couldn't because his knee ligaments are made of cheesestrings and he's netted just three league goals for Birmingham this season. Fair enough, he netted 17 in 2003/04 but he didn't score at all last season (he played just four games) and has bagged three in 16 (nine starts) this season. Would anybody really have been happy to see us spunk three million on a striker who has played 20 matches in two seasons and scored just three goals? Mind you, the way Beattie seems to have gone back into his shell his return of 11 goals in 41 games (34 starts) aint looking too clever!

In reality though, this game has got draw written all over it. The last league game they won away from St Andrew's was when they beat Sunderland in November. Since then, the best they have come up with is draws at Liverpool, Chelsea and Wigan but that's not bad going considering we can match just one of those results.

We've played them three times at Goodison in the Premiership and won one and drawn two. Our single win was when Rooney scored the winner at the back end of 2003. Last season, Big Dunc rescued a point for us after Heskey had hit the slowest pea roller of a shot past Nigel Martyn in the fifth minute.

The last time we played them we somehow won through a 25-yarder from Simon Davies…they must still be scratching their heads about that one!

As far as team news goes, Nuno Valente is still out but Mikel Arteta is going to face a late fitness test.

Things are much worse for Birmingham as they will be without Dunn, Jarosik and Lazaridis and could be missing Pennant and Heskey. So that's good news for us anyway!

And, according to the club website, Kevin Kilbane has targeted nine points from our last three games…so we should be alright then!