Everton vs. Arsenal: Match Report
Goodison Park has been a bogey ground for Arsenal in recent years and a ground Mikel Arteta is yet to win at as Arsenal manager. The last time the Gunners won there was in 2017, since then they have suffered 4 defeats and a draw. If they want to keep pace with Man City and apply some kind of pressure on them, this is a game where they need to claim all 3 points.
Going into this match Mikel Arteta made changes to his side, bringing in Raya and Fabio Vieira into the starting 11. This is probably because the Champions League begins next week and he is starting to rotate his squad, resting players for those ties. Sean Dyche changed Patterson out for Mykolenko at left back who faced off against Saka in a Euro qualifier game where he kept the winger at bay and replaced Garner for McNeil in midfield.
Arsenal started off on the front foot, creating some really interesting shapes and linking them with quick passes and little flicks. The right side of Arsenal's attack is formed by White, Rice, Odegaard and Saka and those 4 have a really good understanding of each other's games, where they want to pick up the ball, where they want to run into and where they all are. There is some really good cohesion there, a lot of it building on from what they had the season prior. Arsenal have a clear plan to try to utilise this side of the pitch more and it leaves players on the left seeing much less of the ball. When Rice joins the right-hand side of the attack and is so high, it means Zinchenko on the left doesn’t have the freedom to get forward as much just in case of a turn of possession. Due to this, Martinelli has much less support only being able to link up with whoever fills the left-centre midfield role, in this case Vieira. In the 20th minute, Vieira picked the ball up from Nketiah and slid a ball through for Martinelli who was quicker to react than the Everton backline, he cooly dispatched it past Pickford to open the scoring. Moments later it was ruled offside by VAR, as Nketiah was in an offside position, however, it was slightly contentious due to the ball being played to him had come from a heavy deflection from an Everton player. In addition to this, the images provided by VAR did not clearly show that he was in an offside position, leaving viewers guessing as to whether he was or not. Having said this, I did think the player was in an offside position, but the ball that came to him was played off an Everton player with the Arsenal player having no intention to play the ball to Arsenal's number 14, leaving the situation a little bit sore.
After having scored the offside goal, Martinelli went down and was substituted for Trossard who was eager to get minutes after an impressive display for Belgium over the international break. Everton were wasteful with the ball in the first half and had little to nothing going on, but managed a short spell where they pushed up the pitch before the break. In this, Doucoure went on a run where he went past Rice and charged into the 18-yard box before going down due to Saliba sticking his leg out which was quickly retracted. Inside Goodison Park there were shouts and screams for a penalty, but there was no validity behind their claims.
Again, when the second half started Arsenal were quick out of the blocks, piling on the pressure and threatening their opponent's goal. Within the first minute, Rice had threaded a ball to Odegaard in the 18-yard box who went past Branthwaite to fire a shot straight down Pickford’s throat which was easily saved before being thrashed over the bar from Veira. It felt as if Arsenal were passing the ball in front of Everton's line of defence a lot and were struggling to find that ball that would send them through. Zinchenko managed to pick up the ball numerous times on the left and send both Trossard and Vieira running for an over-the-top through ball which gave the Everton defence something else to think about. These balls were really successful led to some good opportunities.
Last season Arsenal were really good at corners, scoring a league-high of 13 last season joint with Spurs. This season they have taken a different approach. Against Man United, they played a lot of short corners, and they did the same today against Everton. Odegaard would go short and pick the ball up before running towards the box passing the ball off and setting off a chain of movements and passes. Today it came good in the end. Odegaard goes short and works the ball to the edge of the box before White slips in Saka who cuts back to Trossard in acres of space even within the opposition's box and he finds the far side of the goal with a sublime first-time finish on his weaker foot. He managed to put his side 1-0 up and show his coach why he should be starting, in a second half where he really came to light after a disappointing first half.
Everton then had to react and left themselves more open at the back as they were chasing an equaliser to steal a point. That bred another chance for Arsenal in which Trossard picked up a loose ball from Branthwaite to send his captain through on goal whose shot was saved again by Pickford with Vieira’s shot being blocked. It looked like Arsenal were going to get that goal on the break and put the game to bed but Pickford showed his value between the posts. On the flip side, Everton were the side who were on the front foot from the 80th minute but couldn’t manage to create any clear chances throughout the game, which was also a testament to Arsenal's defending.
Overall, it was a game where Everton had reduced themselves to a 0-0 draw at best, getting forward very little and having just 26% of the possession to Arsenal's 76%. Arsenal had created a number of chances and eventually found a breakthrough via the Belgian international, but in the first half, there was a little swing of momentum after the disallowed goal where Goodison Park woke up and Everton found their footing, unfortunately for them it didn’t last long enough to give themselves a chance in this game. Raya had very little to do in goal but was flawless nonetheless, Nketiah didn’t have a great game and saw little of the ball himself only having the one opportunity all game. This was a great result for Arsenal going forward and proved to themselves that they could handle a physical team at an unfavourable ground.
