Everton v Arsenal
- Everton v Arsenal: Points needed for fourth, Arsenal first to 100
- Everton v Arsenal this saturday lunchtime: just what are Everton playing at?
- Everton v Arsenal and the oddity of referee behaviour
- Everton v Arsenal: how this referee treats the home and away team
- Everton v Arsenal: extraordinary figures from the last six games table
By Bulldog Drummond
The general consensus is that in not signing anyone in the transfer window Everton did themselves no favours and increased the sense of disorganisation within the club such that rumours of them not having the money to complete the new stadium now abound.
But despite all the expectations of an easy Arsenal win, we should pause for a moment to remember that in recent times Everton have got the better of Arsenal. Indeed of the last seven league meetings between the two sides Arsenal have won just two, Everton have won four and there was a goalless draw in December 2019.
However that second Arsenal win was by five goals to one on 22 May 2022, and hopefully, that will have set the scene for today. And it is interesting to note that through this poor run of seven games Everton only once scored more than one goal in a match, and that when losing 3-2 in 2020. Here’s the video…
In the eight league games prior to that, Everton won just one (December 2016) and Arsenal won the other seven.
For today’s match the Guardian suggests the team will be
Ramsdale
White Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko
Ødegaard Partey Xhaka
Saka Nketiah Martinelli
They give us a bench selected from Hein, Turner, Tierney, Tomiyasu, Holding, Vieira, Trossard, Jorginho, Kiwior, Nelson, Smith Rowe, although one or two of those may still be classified as recovering from injury and so it is not 100% certain.
Incidentally, Ødegaard is Arsenal’s top scorer away from home with six goals, including scoring in each of the last three.
However Sean Dyche is a very pesky manager and as Burnley director of violence he lost one of his final five meetings with Arsenal. Mind you he only won one.
But those last five games of Burnley under Dyche were an aberration, for prior to that in 13 games in the League and FA Cup, Arsenal won 11 and one was a draw. So the fact is Dyche with his raging negativity managed to frustrate Arsenal during the Arteta rebuild, but that does mean this rebuilt Arsenal team will succumb to what will undoubtedly be ultra-negative tactics that will make earlier Everton games this season look positively joyful.
In his last 15 league games with Burnley, Dyche’s side won just four games and drew two others and it was with much relief to most supporters of other teams that the wretched side finally left the Premier League. Sadly they are now once more top of the Championship – but under new management, they are now scoring (55 goals in 28 league games).
The Racing Post give us a team of …
Ramsdale;
White, Gabriel, Saliba, Zinchenko;
Odegaard, Jorginho, Xhaka;
Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli.
Sports Mole don’t have any innovations in the player selection but they do set out the line up differently as a 4-2-3-1, although this Arsenal team is so fluid I am not sure we can say 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 will be the formation.
Ramsdale;
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko;
Xhaka, Partey;
Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli;
Nketiah
And that 4-2-3-1 with those self-same players turns up in the Radio Times as well. And in 90min too, so at that point we stopped searching – it is one of those games where there is general agreement as to who is in the team.
Whatever happens today (and everyone seems to be expecting an Arsenal win, with most of the pundits going for 0-2 to Arsenal – although we went for 1-2 based on the home and away form) Arsenal will of course still be top of the league.
The other fixtures today are
- Aston Villa v Leicester City
- Brentford v Southampton
- Brighton and Hove Albion v AFC Bournemouth
- Manchester United v Crystal Palace
- Wolverhampton Wanderers v Liverpool
- Newcastle United v West Ham United
- Nottingham Forest v Leeds United
- Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City
The upset could be a draw at Wolverhampton simply because Liverpool’s away form is wretched, and we are backing Manchester City to beat Tottenham, given that Tottenham have already been beaten at their shining new wonderful incredible amazing stadium four times this season.
So we are going to be very silly and predict a league table after this weekend’s matches which reads
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 20 | 17 | 2 | 1 | 53 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 21 | 15 | 3 | 3 | 48 |
| 3 | Newcastle United | 21 | 11 | 9 | 1 | 42 |
| 4 | Manchester United | 21 | 13 | 3 | 5 | 42 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 22 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 36 |
You can of course have a jolly laugh at our expense when we get all of that wrong – but then we do like to give value for money (remembering you are not paying to read this). Although hopefully we have got the Arsenal result right.
Well, the half a billion trade club have not been able to win.
I guess it will come at some point.
Still, 2 more points lost for them.
For the Sp*rs-Citeh game, I’d be more happy with a tie….let them lose 2 points !
That being said, I just care for Arsenal to win. Even if it is a one-nil to the Arsenal. But I’m hoping our forward line can smash through the Everton defence and give us a remake of the game in May. After all we are supposed to have the most powerful attack (Citeh are playing with a one man attack, so it is not the same). And our bench has gotten better.
So, Pickford ‘made the most’ of Eddie’s attempted block…isn’t that just called cheating?
How is a body check off the ball in the box not a foul?
Cheating time wasting bastards
Well, not our best effort of the year. We did not produce a great deal within their box. Yes, the probably wasted 10 minutes of play in the last 20 minutes of play with a lot of epic shithousery but we didn’t move the ball quickly enough. Their goal was a simple mismatch. No way was Odegaard going to be able to mark Tarkowski.
Too bad…next week.
GoingGoingGooner,
As we’ve seen, if you stop Odegaard, you stop Arsenal. Zinchenko takes over, playing everywhere but left back. A lot of passing but not a lot of end product. Good way to stifle the Arsenal attack.
Sadly, it turned out just as I feared in the previous post.
Yes, Arsenal not at their best – too slow and a bit complacent in the first half, too hasty with chances created in the second.
Still, Everton were allowed to kick Odegaard out of the game, kick Saka and Martinelli repeatedly and were able to get away with their own pretence of being injured in order to waste time. No surprise that they also got away with eye-gouging. Also no surprise that VAR did not confirm a penalty for Arsenal.
Maupay is a horror- he was the player who ended Leno’s season (and possibly his Arsenal career) with an off-ball assault. I really now hope that Everton get relegated. Dyche does not belong in football – never mind the Premier League.
PS. I am not convinced that the corner leading to the Everton goal was correctly awarded. It looked as if the ball had rebounded on the attacker.
Still, we should have defended it better.
The free-kick awarded to Pickford for a foul by Eddie was as clear an obvious error as I’ve seen. What is the point of VAR?
The sad souls of Untold Arsenal won’t have it any other way. We were not beaten by a better team on the day, but cheated out of a deserved win.
Another at our best for whatever reason, Partey clearly suffering and Jorginho will need time to settle into this team, but, they scored from a corner that should have been a free kick, and Arsenal denied what looked a clear penalty, again.
Strange how for a while our results are so poor against this highly limited team and manager, but the refs do favour them, and this manager for some reason.
As for the penalty, According to Transfermarkt, Arsenal , along with Everton have been given the least number of penalties in this league, no surprise there, but there should be considering the amount of goals scored and general attacking from this Arsenal team. It seems Arsenal have had a single penalty all season, those attacking master teams West Ham and Fulham have been awarded 6 and 7 respectively. Odd.
Still, Arsenal need to pick themselves up, as I suspect they will at home to Brentford. Hopefully, today was a one off, certainly haven’t seen MO play that badly.
Hello Leonard, I see you have changed the spelling of your nom-de-plume, perhaps as an attempt to avoid moderation, but somehow the system still picked you up.
There is a fundamental difference between you and I. You love generalisation, linking together a number of readers of Untold as “sad souls” and thus attempt with minimalist language to put them down, but utterly fail once more to give any evidence to back up your view. Opinions are ok, if they are illuminating, and to some degree at least amplified by logic, reasoning or evidence. But when none of those are in place they become just, well, not very much at all.