Everton 0-0 Aston Villa – Premier League: Live score, team news and updates as Unai Emery’s high-flying side look to keep pace at the top

Sean Dyche will be the most pleased of the two managers so far. Everton have started brightly and have had the lion’s share of possession, but Villa are looking to grow into the game.

Signs of sign from Villa at last. The visitors counter well as Diaby plays the ball into Watkins, who holds off Tarkowski and shoots for goal but Pickford saves well with his legs.

Everton have a free-kick on the edge of the box, but Garner smacks it straight into it the wall and the chance is gone. Everton win possession back almost immediately as Villa are yet to get going.

Douglas Luiz dallies dangerously on the ball and Onana looks to pounce on the backpass to Martinez, but he clatters into the Villa goalkeeper.

The Argentine looks in real pain here, but gets back to his feet and the visitors have a free-kick.

Luiz is a relieved man as his sloppy touch could have easily played Everton in.

McGinn plays in Bailey, who looks to play a dangerous ball cross the box but slips and all his best laid plans end up in smoke. Everton then win a corner but nothing comes of it as Martinez claims it with ease.

James Garner is down after suffering an early knock but he gets gingerly back to his feet much to Sean Dyche’s relief.

Everton’s first attack, meanwhile, ends with an offside.

And we’re off as Aston Villa get proceedings underway. The winter sunshine has disappeared behind the clouds at Goodison Park. Is that an omen?

Z Cars blares out of the tannoy and here come the players. Kick off is only minutes away.

In case you missed them earlier, here are the starting XI for Everton and Aston Villa.

Everton XI: Pickford, Coleman, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Onana, Garner, Doucoure, Harrison, Danjuma, Calvert-Lewin.

Substitutes: Virginia, Patterson, Keane, McNeil, Beto, Gomes, Godfrey, Chermiti, Dobbin.

Aston Villa XI: Martinez, Konsa, Carlos, Lenglet, Moreno, Kamara, Luiz, Bailey, McGinn, Diaby, Watkins.

Substitutes: Marschall, Wright, Cash, Tielemens, Zaniolo, Duran, Dendoncker, Iroegbunam.

Everton and Aston Villa will both be wearing black armbands to honour former Toffees chairman Peter Johnson, who has died at the age of 84.

Everto won the 1995 FA Cup under his stewardship, which remains the club’s most recent trophy.

Speaking on Sky Sports, Roy Keane was full of praise for Emery.

‘Emery seems a fantastic fit for the club. Top four, they’ve got a great chance,’ he says.

‘We’ve seen brilliant teams like Man City having dips. Villa just have to improve their home form slightly. I think they’re in with a great chance.’

Unai Emery tells Sky Sports that Villa are in for a difficult afternoon, but insist they want to keep their winning run going.

‘It’s very important, we are keeping the top four or five positions now,’ he says.

‘We are going to get the three points through playing well and adapting our play. It’s always very difficult to win here.

‘More or less we are being consistent. We are trying to play the same game plan when we are facing each time. To be consistent in everything. We are trying to adapt when the opponent are being more aggressive.

Just good have Aston Villa been under Unai Emery? The short answer is very, very good.

Villa are averaging 2.02 points per game in the Premier League under the Spaniard, picking up 91 points in 45 matches.

That makes him the only manager in Premier League history to manage over 40 games with a club and have an average of over two points per game without winning the title.

That, of course, could all change this season.

Want some lovely footage of Aston Villa players arriving at Goodison Park and interacting with their

mascot? Ask and you shall receive.

Dyche adds Everton were ‘shocked’ by Dominic Calvert-Lewin red card against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup, which has since been rescinded.

‘We were all shocked by that decision, we’ve moved on from that, it’s the reality,’ he says.

‘Our consistency is important. We’ve got to get the margins right at both ends of the pitch.’

And the Everton boss has backed Calvert-Lewin to rediscover his goalscoring form.

‘Beto’s adapting to the game here, Dom’s been up and down for a long time, it’s getting back in the ryhthm, goals will come his way,’ he explains.

‘The further away it gets the closer it comes.’

Sean Dyche has been speaking to Sky Sports and is confident his side can turn their fortunes around after losing three games in a row.

‘A very strong beginning, not so strong in the latter part. Some tough fixtures,’ he says.

‘We’re in a good place performance-wise. We’ve got to get back to winning.’

On facing Villa, Dyche says: ‘Villa are a strong outfit, they’ve proven that. They’re still a threat away, it still comes down to us performing.’

Seamus Coleman will make history this afternoon when he makes his 355th Premier League appearance for Everton, setting a new record and overtaking Tim Howard’s previous landmark of 354 matches and three more than Leon Osman.

Sean Dyche has praised the Everton captain on Sky Sports.

‘His professionalism is outstanding, he’s an old fashioned pro who does all the modern things to keep himself right,’ he said.

Unai Emery has told Sky Sports Jacob Ramsey is unavailable today because of injury. The midfielder is ‘not feelign well’ after suffering what Emery describes as a ‘small pain’.

Joining Everton was the ‘most stressful day’ of James Garner’s life but 16 months on he’s reaping the benefits of leaving boyhood club, Manchester United.

Garner had been with United from the age of seven so his decision to seek a fresh start in 2022 was major, particularly as the £15million move to Goodison Park took place on deadline day with the clock ticking.

From being a bit-part player at Old Trafford, the 22-year-old midfielder is now one of Sean Dyche’s main men.

You can read more about his remarkable rise here.

Here’s Aston Villa XI for this afternoon. Unai Emery makes four changes to the team that Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, with Diego Carlos replacing Matty Cash in the back four.

Douglas Luiz, Moussa Diaby and top-scorer Ollie Watkins are all back in the starting XI, while Youri Tielemens is among the substitutes after recovering from injury.

Here’s today’s Everton XI. The Toffees welcome back Abdoulaye Doucoure after five games and he goes straight into the starting line-up, in place of the injured Dwight McNeil.

If you are of an Everton persuasion, you may wish to look away now for recent history between these two sides does not bode well for this afternoon.

Villa have won five of the most recent Premier League meetings against Everton by a combined score of 12-1 and have won in their last two visits to Goodison Park.

Goals from Ollie Watkins and Emi Buendia sealed a 2-0 win in February last year, with the latter also scoring the winner in a 1-0 in January 2022.

Players and staff have arrived at Goodison, where they have been greeted by a picture-perfect winter day.

At the risk of sounding like an old nostalgic, it’s hard to picture English football without The Grand Old Lady.

Sure, Everton’s new state-of-the-art ground is long overdue and will offer all the comforts of a modern stadium, but will it match Goodison’s atmosphere?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

Everton and Villa may not be the first names that come up when discussing some of English football’s main rivalries, but there’s plenty of history between the two clubs.

So much aso, in fact, that this afternoon marks the 212th time they have met in a top-flight fixture and the 231st time in all.

Records are so astonishingly tight there are but four wins and three goals separating them across 135 years.

They have 34 major trophies between them — at least one in each decade from the birth of organised football to the dawn of this millennium, minus the 1940s when war intervened.

You can read more about from Mail Sport’s Matt Barlow here.

Everton have lost their last three games in the Premier League, but Sean Dyche believes his side can quickly rediscover the form they showed in early December when they won four matches in a row.

‘We have genuine belief within the group and we have shown already that when we focus on ourselves and get things right, we can be more than a match for any team,’ he wrote in the matchday programme.

‘We know, as ever, you’ll be behind us all the way.’

The Premier League winter break means action is at a premium this weekend, with just five fixtures across three days.

The silver lining to it all is that today’s matches should provide talking points aplenty.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe will be in attendance at Old Trafford later this afternoon for the first time since his minority takeover was formally announced, while Timo Werner could make his Tottenham debut after returning to the Premier League.

Before all of that, however, our collective attention focuses on Merseyside where Everton host Aston Villa in a very important fixture for both.

The days when Everton appeared to have dragged themselves out of the relegation zone are as distant a memory as Christmas dinner.

Three consecutive defeats have dropped the Toffees right back into the thick of it and they start the day 17th on the table, but clear of the relegation zone purely on goal difference.

Villa, meanwhile, would temporarily go top of the table alongside Liverpool with a win this afternoon – albeit having played one more game than Jurgen Klopp’s team.

Unai Emery’s men overcame a slight festive wobble with a last-gasp win over Burnley on December 30 and are third in the table.

Good afternoon and welcome to Mail Sport’s coverage of the first half of today’s Super Sunday.

Early action comes from Goodison Park, where Everton host Aston Villa looking to stop a run of three consecutive Premier League defeats.

Coming up we’ll have team news and all the build-up ahead of the 2pm kick-off.