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Penalty for Arsenal
25 min: The referee is asked over to the screen, and doesn’t need too long to announce that “Everton 15 commits a handball offence” and that the “final decision is a penalty kick.”
24 min: O’Brien put hands on, but not strongly enough for a penalty. No matter, though, because when the resulting corner comes in from the left, O’Brien goes up with Calafiori at the far stick. Both hands are in the air, and the ball flicks off his fingers. No whistle, but this will surely be a penalty once VAR gets involved again.
22 min: Ah no, to be fair, they press on the gas again, Saka slipping Timber into space down the right. Timber’s cross balloons up and off Mykolenko, arcing towards the far post. Gyokeres wants to head home from close range, but can’t connect, and claims he’s been nudged out of the way unfairly by O’Brien. VAR to take a look.
21 min: … so having suggested that, Arsenal slow it right down again. Pulitzer, please!
20 min: Odegaard swings one in from the right. Gyokeres flashes a harmless header well wide of the left-hand post. But ever so slowly, and after a cold start, Arsenal are shifting up a gear or two.
19 min: … though this is better, as Saka makes it to the byline on the left, and cuts back. Keane only half clears, allowing Zubimendi to take Arsenal’s first shot in anger. The ball sails miles over the bar.
18 min: Trossard jigs down the left but can’t get the better of O’Brien. Arsenal simply haven’t got going yet, and this start clearly hasn’t helped the mood of their more nervous fans. Here’s Chris N: “I envisage a gritty draw here, followed by an inexorable and totally predictable set of stumbles by Arsenal. City take it on the last day.”
16 min: … and yet on the whole, he’ll be pretty happy with the way his team have started this game. They’re having the better of it.
14 min: … it’s woefully overhit by McNeil, a curler positively blootered deep into the stand behind the goal. On the touchline, a clearly unimpressed David Moyes channels the collected writing of Irvine Welsh into interpretive dance.
13 min: Garner sends the corner long. Raya comes off his line and flaps. Hincapie digs him out of trouble with a clearing header at the far stick. But it’s at the expense of a throw, which O’Brien launches long from the right. Barry and Tarkowski hover, and force Timber into conceding another corner. This one will come in from the right, and …
12 min: A speculative pass down the Everton left, coupled with Barry’s presence, forces Saliba into the concession of the game’s first corner. Garner to take.
11 min: Both teams take turns to probe gingerly. There’s not a great deal going on right now. Arsenal being favourites, Everton will be the happier.
9 min: Calafiori and Hincapie make a meal of dealing with a simple long ball, momentarily threatening to give McNeil, buzzing around, a sniff. But eventually they combine to head clear then hoof. This game’s not quite taken off. Plenty of time yet.
7 min: Arsenal with the crowd-quietening possession again. Eventually Saka tries to make ground on the right, but Grealish is on point to close down the route to the Everton box.
5 min: Arsenal settle the crowd down a little bit with some sterile domination around the centre circle. Some early authority established? Not quite, because after a couple of minutes of it, Everton nick the ball and Grealish tries to set Mykolenko away down the left. He overhits the pass. Goal kick.
3 min: Gyokeres picks up possession on the centre line and tries to round Keane, hoping to instigate a footrace. Clank! No way past. He goes over, demanding a free kick. He’s not getting one. Meanwhile here’s another, slightly less jittery, Arsenal fan in David Penney: “The only thing that gives me a small amount of confidence is that we have done most of the ‘hard’ away games now. I still expect every away game to be hard though.”
2 min: Everton are on the front foot immediately. Alcaraz has a look down the left but is forced to turn tail. Never mind, there’s still one heck of an atmosphere tonight on the banks of the Mersey, pre-festive cheer, Saturday night, da nee na na na, be my baby, etc.
Here we go, then! Arsenal get the ball rolling at the Hill Dickinson. “Good evening Scott.” Good evening Jones Manoah from Nairobi. “It’s too early for it to be ‘squeaky bum time’, but with scar tissue we Gooners have accumulated over the past three seasons, it sure feels that way. Hoping for the best for my beloved Gunners, but I can’t help feeling all queasy as Man City with the goal bot come breathing down our necks.”
The teams are out. Everton wear their royal blue, while Arsenal are also in their first-choice robes, theirs of red and white. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!
David Moyes speaks to Sky Sports. “Dwight McNeil is a really important player … he gets a good opportunity tonight … it’s not our plan to [play in a low block] … sometimes Arsenal play so well they force people into a low block! … every team has to do it when the opposition are in charge of the ball … hopefully we can be in charge of the ball … give them a really tough game.”
Mikel Arteta talks to Sky too: “We have been able to be together [this week] … to train more times … it’s been a really, really positive week … you come here you do the basics very well … they will try to drag you to a certain game and we want a different game … we have to master those things to give ourselves the best chance to win.”
Pre-match postbag. Just the one email for all y’all, but it’s the usual high-quality fare from the MBM’s resident Gunner, Charles Antaki: “Yes, all right; it can be admitted by Arsenal fans: the Fear is back. But this is the exact, the precise time for a transformation scene: for Victor Gyökeres to burst out of the back end of the pantomime cow, throw off his rags and stride the stage like a triumphant Principal Boy. Does he know it’s Christmastime?”
The 5.30pm kick-off has just finished, and Liverpool have won 2-1 at nine-man Tottenham Hotspur. They didn’t half make a meal of it, though, and it very nearly became Elland Road v2.0. Barry Glendenning has the details. That puts Liverpool up to fifth, for at least a couple of hours, though Crystal Palace can leapfrog them if they beat Leeds United at Elland Road in tonight’s other 8pm game. As for the teams we’re concentrating on here, Arsenal can of course reclaim top spot with a victory, while Everton can make it up to sixth if they win big, though that’d depend on what Palace get up to.
Everton make three changes to their starting XI following the 2-0 defeat at Chelsea, and all of them are enforced. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is injured, while Idrissa Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye are away at Afcon. In come Tim Iroegbunam, Dwight McNeil and Charly Alcaraz.
Arsenal also make three changes, after their 2-1 home win over Wolverhampton Wanderers. Martin Ødegaard, Leandro Trossard and Riccardo Calafiori come in for Eberechi Eze and Gabriel Martinelli, who drop to the bench, and the injured Ben White.
The teams
Everton: Pickford, O’Brien, Tarkowski, Keane, Mykolenko, Garner, Iroegbunam, McNeil, Alcaraz, Grealish, Barry.
Subs: Travers, King, Patterson, Beto, Dibling, Rohl, Aznou, Welch, Campbell.
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Hincapie, Calafiori, Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice, Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Gabriel Jesus, Eze, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Nwaneri, Merino, Lewis-Skelly.
Referee: Samuel Barrott
VAR: Michael Salisbury
Live from Bramley-Moore Dock, it's Saturday Night!
At the start of November, Arsenal won 2-0 at Burnley to go seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. They were anointed in some quarters as champions-elect. But since that day, Mikel Arteta’s team have failed to win an away match in the division. They conceded a last-gasp equaliser at Sunderland. They failed to beat ten-man Chelsea. They lost, late on again, at Aston Villa. Then earlier this afternoon, Manchester City beat West Ham United 3-0, and now look …
Oh Arsenal. Factor in their unconvincing and, let’s face it, extremely fortunate win over bottom club Wolves last weekend, and Gunners fans can be forgiven for worrying if their tale is in the process of unravelling just like that yet again.
Whether or not the Hill Dickinson is the best venue for the title hopefuls to rediscover their road game is moot. Since winning 5-2 at Goodison Park in late 2017 under Arsène Wenger, Arsenal’s record when visiting the blue half of Merseyside isn’t great: won one, drawn two, lost four. But that victory came relatively recently, in September 2023, while last season’s meeting ended in a draw, so they’re unbeaten in this fixture in two.
And it’s not as though the wheels have come clanking off the Arsenal juggernaut in spectacular style: they’ve still only lost twice all season in all competitions, after all. By comparison, Everton are almost the dictionary definition of unpredictability†, capable of street-fighting grit at Old Trafford, a stylish win over Nottingham Forest, and miserable home capitulations to Newcastle and Tottenham. David Moyes side must also tonight do without their two standout performers of the season so far, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall injured and Iliman Ndiaye away at Afcon.
So there’s hope for Arsenal as they look for the win that’d put them back on top of the tree for Christmas. As for Everton, their pressure is a little less intense: comfortable in mid-table, they’ll be looking to build on a promising run of two wins (against Bournemouth and Forest) and a defeat at Chelsea for which they got good notices. Kick-off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
†: They’re not the dictionary definition of unpredictability. That’d be the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.
