By Bulldog Drummond
According to the ever amusingly illogical Sky Sprout discussion Everton are suffering from the pressure of the crowd. The view, we were told is that,”We’ve got the money we’ll have a new ground” and so apparently they ought to be winning. Perhaps we should tell them that building a new ground is actually more likely to cause relegation than a rise up the charts.
Everton as has been noted bought an awfully large number of players in the summer, and that is again rarely a way of making a club work. Among their buys were
- Jordan Pickford from Sunderland for £25m
- Davy Klaassen from Ajax for £23.7m
- Nathangelo Markelo from FC Volenda for a sum that has never been revealed
- Henry Onyekuru from Eupen for £7m
- Sandro Ramírez from Málaga for £5.3m
- Michael Keane from Burnley for £25m
- Boris Mathis from Metz again for a sum that has never been revealed for whatever reason
- Josh Bowler from QPR and once again the amount of money has not be announced
- Anton Donkor from Wolfsburg on loan
- Wayne Rooney from Manchester United and here again we don’t know how much he cost
- Cuco Martina from Southampton for nothing
- Lewis Gibson from Newcastle United and for the fifth time we don’t know the £££
- Gylfi Sigurdsson from Swansea City for £45m
- Nikola Vlasic from Hajduk Split for £9m
So how will all these jolly lads do? According to the Guardian, “Midway through the Europa League defeat by Lyon at Goodison on Thursday, just before the fighting broke out in fact, the chap in the next seat turned to me and said he wouldn’t mind sticking £100 on Everton to beat Arsenal at the weekend. ‘They are clearly concentrating on that game,” he argued, pointing to the fact that Wayne Rooney, Leighton Baines and a couple of other regulars had been left out of the side to face Lyon. ‘And come on, Everton always beat Arsenal’.”
So let’s have a look. For some of these quaint northern aphorisms are not quite as… well… true, as they like to think.
If we go all the way through Football League and Cup matches Arsenal have beaten Everton 103 times, there have been 45 draws and Everton have won 60.
But perhaps the commentator on the topic was only thinking of recent games. So let us have a look at that as well. I’ve numbered the games in the sequence so it is easier to keep track.
| No | Date | The game | Result | Score | Competition |
| 1 | 29 Dec 2007 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 1-4 | Premier League |
| 2 | 04 May 2008 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 3 | 18 Oct 2008 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 3-1 | Premier League |
| 4 | 28 Jan 2009 | Everton v Arsenal | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 5 | 15 Aug 2009 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 1-6 | Premier League |
| 6 | 09 Jan 2010 | Arsenal v Everton | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 7 | 14 Nov 2010 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 8 | 01 Feb 2011 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 9 | 10 Dec 2011 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 10 | 21 Mar 2012 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 11 | 28 Nov 2012 | Everton v Arsenal | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 12 | 16 Apr 2013 | Arsenal v Everton | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 13 | 08 Dec 2013 | Arsenal v Everton | D | 1-1 | Premier League |
| 14 | 08 Mar 2014 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 4-1 | FA Cup |
| 15 | 06 Apr 2014 | Everton v Arsenal | L | 3-0 | Premier League |
| 16 | 23 Aug 2014 | Everton v Arsenal | D | 2-2 | Premier League |
| 17 | 01 Mar 2015 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 18 | 18 Jul 2015 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 1-3 | Premier League Asia Trophy |
| 19 | 24 Oct 2015 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 20 | 19 Mar 2016 | Everton v Arsenal | W | 0-2 | Premier League |
| 21 | 13 Dec 2016 | Everton v Arsenal | L | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 22 | 21 May 2017 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 3-1 | Premier League |
Here we have the last 22 games between the clubs in all competitions. If you feel that the Asia Trophy should not be there, and if you feel the FA Cup is not a trophy you can take that out if you like to give a round 20.
But for the moment let’s keep the 22. Six draws, two defeats for Arsenal. That makes eight games Arsenal have not won and 14 games Arsenal have won. So how could this guy chatting up the Guardian journalist say ‘And come on, Everton always beat Arsenal’. Was he deranged? Or just an Everton supporter?
To be fair I suspect this must the irony that Liverpool is universally famous for. I mean, wherever you go in the world you hear people say, “Oh those Liverpudlians. They are so full of irony.”
That’s Irony. The opposite of wrinkly.
Which is pretty much what Everton are. They are of course also famous for their flares and smoke bombs which they regularly bring into the Emirates with impunity. Sadly our idea of telling the club that if any flares or smoke bombs are released from the away end the number of visitors tickets will be cut in half, has not been used. I don’t know why.
Part of the reason for the belief in Everton as a super duper beater of Arsenal comes from the media with their constant portrayal of Wenger not being able to beat northern teams where men are men and women are [this part of Bulldog’s commentary has been cut on the grounds of good taste – Tony.]
It is northern grit, the fans give the home side a life, the softie southerns don’t like it up em, fancy dan Londoners can’t take a fight, and besides Everton fans can fight footballers while holding their children. We know that, it is in the papers.
So what does their manager make of it all?
“We have not got the finesse or the confidence at the moment to try and play out from the back, we make too many mistakes,” he said. “We are better when we play more direct.” I think we used to call that kick and rush. The long ball game is the modern phrase. Oh yes, and they have been unlucky with injuries.
More tomorrow.
- Why the government can’t reform the FA, and why the FA will (sadly) survive forever
- Everton v Arsenal: early team news, player and spectator violence at Goodison.
- Everton v Arsenal, 22 October – The Match Officials. Evidence suggests blatant bias.
Bulldog
“That’s Irony. The opposite of wrinkly.”
No no no, that’s not right at all.
Everyone knows, ‘Irony’ is just like ‘Goldy’ and ‘Bronzy’ only made of Iron?
I must say I am enjoying the ManU Huddersfield match, so far…0-2 33min
sorry…Huddersfield is at home.
Has ManU parked the bus?
No, they have all the possession except for their sprints back to pick the ball out of their net.
OT.
Dreadful or shocking defending by Man Utd has given Huddersfield a shocking 2-0 lead in the game against Man Utd with 10 minutes to go before half time. But of a more shocking to me is the PGMO referee awarding a penalty to Man City which Aguero converted to level the score to deny Burnley holding on to the 0-1 goal lead in the game they took early in the first half of the match.
Mooy, the Huddersfield goals scorer walking off the field looked tired to me on my TV screen. And Jose Mourinho was said to walked off to the dressing room before the end of the first half of his Man U team away to Huddersfield match. Why did he do so? Is he shocked?
On the TV monitor from the live TV match commentaries of the Man U vs Huddersfield match on my TV was shown Burnley had score a goal to take an early lead in their away match against Man C in the first half of the match. But I later come to know it wasn’t so. It was Man C that converted a rigged PGMO penalty awarded to them.
I just looked at WorldFootball’s page on the ManU game, and top item is Ashley Young getting a yellow card. Was he out diving again?
Manure is a dive!
Does the shocking result today at John Smith’s Stadium this afternoon which saw Huddersfield Town humbling Man Utd 2-1 in the game, and with Watford losing 4-2 to Chelsea at the Bridge earlier on today suggest Arsenal will from 6th go to 5th in the table by beating Everton at Goodison Park tomorrow? Yes! Let the Gunners seize this opportunity with both hands and do the beating of Everton tomorrow.
Arsenal have one of their last five at Goodison. Not everything in the Guardian is a dig at Arsenal surely.
Snippets form an ESPN article (ESPN is the world wide leader in being ESPN):
Part of the article seems to point to the referee being too slow to issue a yellow, and ends up issueing two instead.
Should Martial have been carded first? If so, maybe the disciplinary committee of that “most excellent” (sweet) FA should give Martial an extra present?
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I would like to see the Southampton – WBA game end in a draw.
Gord
On the subject of United.
I posted this a couple of weeks ago but I think, in a slightly updated version, I think it bears repeating because surely this start to the season United have been presented with must be the easiest set of fixtures a club has had ever had.
17th placed West Ham United H 4–0
14th placed Swansea City A 4–0
18th placed Leicester City H 2–0
16th placed Stoke City A 2–2
15th placed Everton H 4–0
12th placed Southampton A 1–0
20th placed Crystal Palace H 4–0
8th placed Liverpool A 0–0
13th placed Huddersfield Town A 1–2
Remarkably the only team they’ve played in the top half of the table are 8th placed Liverpool. This is how the rest stood prior to kick off today:
12th – 13th – 14th – 15th – 16th – 17th – 18th – 20th
That’s 8 of the bottom 9 sides.
That is a truly remarkable set of fixtures.
You figure that all the teams would see the wonderful record that ManU had this season, and just will themselves out of the match because it was obvious they were too good? 🙂
I suppose the flip side is, ManU have had so many easy games and gotten the points (although not convincingly in a few), that if they play some tough competition they could get blown out, and start a losing streak.
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In years past, people have talked about Arsenal doing poorly in November. I had looked into it, and it was more than a month. Nominally it is from now until the beginning of December. What I thought the cause was, was that this was the time of year when Arsenal consistently played the most games.
I still don’t think the rate of getting points in this period is statistically lower than other times.
And I don’t know if Europa League is going to have significantly fewer games for this next 6 weeks or so, than Champions League did. The biggest difference, is that we are getting away with playing more of the team, and so there is more opportunity for rest and recovery.
It’s not Man U I am worried about, it’s City!
They look unstoppable at the moment, another three goals today, Man U will start to fade now they have all the easy games out of the way. Everton don’t have to release what transfer fee they pay, Arsenal also never release its always undisclosed.
Yea, City seems to be flying, lets hope they have to come down for some oxygen soon, and they get beat soon too else it will be Arsenal that has to stop them. 🙂 (from taking our crown).
For me it was always just a matter of time before City got there act together.
They’ve not only been throwing money at it like it’s going out of fashion, but they acquired a manager that history has shown, given the resources, will put a Championship/Champions league winning side together.
For me the mind boggling amounts of money he spends does water down the true magnitude of whatever he achieves, but there is no doubt he does put together fantastic sides, that not only win things, but they do it with a style and a panache that is undeniably thrilling to watch.
So as much as I still think it is a bit sad that it’s took just South of a BILLION pounds (net) to get where they are, were they are, is it seems, way ahead of the rest of us, although of course it is still early days.
At the end of the day, if we cant win it, which looks unlikely already if we are honest, then I hope it’s City.
More of a worry to me is Spurs. They are so annoying. I cant stand watching them. I find them simply boring. But they are ‘solid’. And they have, in Kane one of the best strikers in the World. If they keep him fit and overcome the Wembley issue I see them as City’s biggest rival. Definite top 4 for me, most likely Runners up.
Regarding United, before a ball was kicked it was pointed out on here a few times what an easy start they had been handed, and until yesterday they had basically taken full advantage of that gift. Now is the time we will find out if they as good as there friends in the media were suggesting, or whether it was a false dawn as I suspect it was. Not even top 4 for me.
Chelsea are not the team they were and are a very mixed bag. Top 4 though,just.
Liverpool. Way too inconsistent. Poss top 4, but I predict they will just come up short.
As for us. I honestly think we are the 2nd best team in the PL. If we hadn’t been robbed at Stoke and Watford by the bandits in black and just come away with 2 draws we would be currently be sat 5th, with a victory today taking us to 3rd, at least until Spurs play. That’s the battle I see us in. A battle for 2nd/3rd with Spurs.
As I say, early days but I think we’ve all seen enough to have a stab at predicting the top 4, and that’s my effort.
I have no doubt at all that many will disagree.
From an Arsenal perspective, there is only one team in the EPL that is beyond defeat. That is the team that runs football. They can’t be defeated in the courts as they are above the Law & they have the run of the game through the corrupt set up of officiating called PGMOL.
The teams owned by the mega rich & countries are still limited to 11 players on the field of play & therefore able to be beaten.
FIFA didn’t account for countries owning teams let alone running their own Football Associations with wealth oozing out of the ground. Those are beyond the Rules but are so slippery & oily, that the FIFA pockets drip with slime.
Thank God that the ball is filled with air & that makes it neutral in some aspects. It wont be long before FIFA change the whole system so that they have a seat in the governments that have Football Associations.
Can see parked bus, hoof, dive,dodgy pen, or dodgy free kick for Gilfi S as the tactics they will use against us.
We need to get beyond a nervous one nil lead if at all possible, if we are one ahead near the end of the game, fully expect them to be given help