Everton have won six out of their last eight games but when it comes to the 2 teams meeting Blues have the upper hand this season with a draw and a victory at Goodison Park in the league and FA Cup.

Both Kevin Phillips and Lee Bowyer return to the squad after missing Tuesday night's trip to Fratton Park. Phillips had a slight hamstring problem earlier in the week and Bowyer was ill. Stuart Parnaby and Lee Carsley both with an ankle problem and Garry O'Connor with a hip problem are still out of the squad.

Evertons Tim Cahill and Louis Saha have recovered from their injuries and might make the matchday squad. Landon Donovan who is on loan is set to make his final appearance for Everton before returning to LA Galaxy for the start of the MLS season. Marouane Fellaini and Leon Osman are definitely out.

Talking about the game Alex McLeish said:

"Everton are still favourites to catch us in this particular campaign. We fancy ourselves at St. Andrew's but Everton are a great side and they were brilliant last week. They will be coming here showing a lot of confidence but we've got to show the same sort of spirit that we've shown at St. Andrew's since day one this season and make sure that Everton are going back up the road to Liverpool thinking that was the last place we wanted to go to. Things are looking good but you can't rest for a moment or get complacent. We need to keep the drive and keep the composure and keep the winning mentality. It was another shot in the arm the other night with the performance against Portsmouth especially coming back from the FA Cup defeat. That speaks volumes for the mentality again. It's incredible the heights they have scaled this season. The secret is to keep it going and for the players to turn up for their work every week with the same performance levels."

The referee taking charge of the game will be Lee Probert. This will be his 25th game of the season. Probert is from Wiltshire and has produced 92 yellow cards and 4 reds during the season. The last Blues game he took charge of was in February when Blues beat Wolves 2-1 at St. Andrew's in a Premier League fixture.
Lee Probert's assistants will be Andy Halliday from North Yorkshire and Nick Kinseley from Essex.

This is the third time the clubs have met this season, although this is the first game to be played at St. Andrews, the two previous encounters were both at Goodison Park.

The league game in December resulted in a 1-1 draw with Seb Larsson equalising after Diniyar Bilyaletdinov's goal in the fifth minute.

It was four weeks later when Blues returned to Goodison Park for a fourth round FA Cup game when Blues won 2-1 with goals from Benitez and Barry Ferguson.

Looking back at meetings between the teams over the years, it's Everton who have enjoyed more victories with 58 league wins compared to Blues' 24. Blues have only beaten Everton once in the Premier League which was a 3-0 victory at St. Andrew's in 2004, Damien Johnson, Stan Lazaridis and Mikael Forssell getting the goals. Everton's last success at St. Andrew's came in October 2005, a 1-0 victory.

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