As long as you don’t do something stupid, we have a chance.
A win is very optimistic. A home draw against table-toppers and Champions League elite is certainly commendable. The predictable defeat is almost obvious. Just don’t pull your own pants down. Represent us correctly.
With the shadow matchday squad belittled, the competition was valiant. Completely short of ideas and cripplingly missing the talent. But valiant.
The Arsenal team and their bench were all superior to Everton, 8 out of nine Arsenal substitutes would make the Everton starting XI. The gulf in class a chasm.
But as Wolverhampton Wanderers had valiantly demonstrated in Arsenal’s last game, you can bunker-in against them and get some success. Wolves didn’t win that game, but what was presented was a game model that Everton could follow. With the missing players depleting the offensive potential Everton’s task was clearly defined.
And for the most part, the plan was a triumph.
Arsenal dominated the game, possessed the ball and were the better team. But with painfully tedious ball circulation a priority over penetration, all the Arsenal dominance produced little but percentage statistics.
Jordan Pickford in the Everton goal was underutilized; he wasn’t peppered with shots, he wasn’t the miracle man holding the Everton hopes, nothing like the busiest player on the field. It was arm’s length passive possession. Probing without hurting. Everton were good. The first part of the plan working just fine.
The second part of the plan was to have some counter-attacking threat and/or maximize the limited set piece opportunity. However, the plan never got that far. While containing with relative comfort the game changed irreversibly.
The Arsenal possession yielded nothing more than a corner kick, often a threat for such a set piece structured team. But also, should be a protective strength of a low-block-happy Everton defensive group.
The Declan Rice corner kick, frequently flat and precise, was neither, rather over floated to the back post and into the zone of Jake O’Brien. Under casual and expected pressure from Arsenal’s Riccardo Calafiori, O’Brien made a game-defining decision, and with it, the Everton chances of success disappeared.
Handball. Double handball. Tough to explain, difficult to caveat, no foundation to mitigate. Stupid, it was.
The referee missed the incident first time around, needing the actual referee to show him what happened on the TV screen. VARoffered the required help in Arsenal’s favor but was somehow less vigilant for the penalty box kick on Thierno Barry that is a foul for every other club, but not today and not for Everton. How I wish our club would call out this missing integrity of Premier League refereeing towards Everton.
The Viktor Gyökeres dispatched penalty kick was not a surprise outcome. Drilled hard at goal, it was the decisive score that changed the game. Everton’s game model was now gone. Can’t win, won’t win from one goal behind. Arsenal’s game model now needed to change, passive possession and dominating the game would be enough to win in a professional if unspectacular manner.
And so the eventless stalemate played out. Everton unable to punch any harder. Arsenal unwilling to commit any further. Nothing else happened. Probably both teams okay with that.
With Everton being so shorthanded and toothless, it asks difficult questions of the club leadership. Too many missing players, too many underachieving players, and clearly not enough players. The recruitment committee have failed; the season management is as questionable as today’s game management. Why are Everton so short?
Losing to league leaders Arsenal is not indignant. And today Everton’s welfare was defined by one horrible moment of judgement. However, with Burnley and Notts Forest up next, there are far more important games to come. Sadly, the status of the current team and the club’s wider decision-making looks underprepared.