It’s been hard not to watch Everton’s last few games through the prism of the coming summer and the prospect of the Club finally being able to add some more quality to the squad as opposed to selling the "family silver" each transfer window to keep the Premier League’s regulatory wolves from the door.
This was another game where the team’s shortcomings going forward and in the final third were painfully evident and made all the more frustrating by the Blues’ overall competitiveness against the top sides in the division. That ability to go toe-to-toe with the supposed elite that has seen Everton draw twice with Arsenal this season and grind out draws against Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool should provide a solid foundation on which to build but quality — that word again — remains the watchword as the recruitment staff plan for the close season.
As the likely runners-up in the 2024/25 title race, the Gunners have talent in abundance and those stars he left on the bench with one eye on a midweek Champions League clash with Real Madrid, Mikel Arteta was able to introduce them in the second half but the visitors were never entirely convincing. Had Everton begun the first half with the kind of attacking intensity that has characterised their recent home matches under David Moyes, they might have been able to get their noses in front.
As it was, after Leandro Trossard had demonstrated the requisite ruthlessness on the counter that Abdoulaye Doucouré had lacked in a similar situation earlier in the first period, Iliman Ndiaye’s penalty shortly after half-time was the Toffees’ first shot on target since the 1-1 draw with West Ham in mid-March. Moyes’s team improved in the second half without ever looking like winning it themselves but the manager will almost certainly take satisfaction from another positive result.
For supporters wanting to see a bit more adventure as Moyes continues to run the rule over the players he inherited from Sean Dyche, there was, at least some experimentation in terms of the team selection. The gaffer’s deference to Doucouré’s experience and work-rate again condemned Charly Alcaraz to watch the first 70-odd minutes from the bench, but, pleasingly, Nathan Patterson was preferred to Ashley Young at left back and Tim Iroegbunam was handed his first start under the new regime.
The former Aston Villa midfielder has had a number of hugely positive cameos as a substitute in recent weeks and caught the eye as a starter early in the campaign under Dyche but this was not his best day. Some loose possession and sloppy giveaways blotted his performance before he made way for James Garner with 25 minutes to go but Patterson acquitted himself well on an unfamiliar side of the pitch deputising for Vitalii Mykolenko and will hopefully have earned further chances to shine before the campaign is through.
The pattern of this contest was established early on, with Arsenal dominating possession as expected and Everton hoping to do damage in transition. An early mis-kick by Jordan Pickford that risked leaving him stranded in no-man’s land went unpunished and it was the hosts who had the chance to draw first blood when Ndiaye, making his first start since the Goodison derby two months ago, threaded Doucouré in behind but neither he nor Beto could get shots away from before they were closed out.
With a quarter of an hour gone, Jack Harrison whipped a free-kick in from the right that Doucouré couldn’t help goal-wards before the ball bounced off the unwitting Jake O’Brien in front of goal while, at the other end, Jarrad Branthwaite had to pull off a brilliant sliding tackle to bail out James Tarkowski after the latter’s awful pass intended for Idrissa Gueye had gifted Trossard the chance to race forward into the penalty area.
The big centre half was caught high upfield 10 minutes later, though, when Trossard found himself in a similar position to this time give Arsenal the lead. Branthwaite and Gueye largely got in each other’s way, with the Senegalese’s header dropping to Raheem Sterling with oceans of space ahead of him to find Trossard steaming forward ahead of him.
The Belgian still had plenty to do with three blue shirts having retreated in formation ahead of him but with neither of O’Brien of Tarkowski pressuring him as he pulled the trigger, he was able to fire across Pickford and into the far corner to give the Gunners a 34th-minute lead.
The ever-willing Beto was almost able to create something soon afterwards when he got around David Raya at the byline but couldn’t stab the ball back for a team-mate and O’Brien couldn’t steer a header of a Harrison cross onto the target, while Ndiaye had the last chance of the half with a rising effort from 25 yards out after Pickford had denied Trossard a second.
The onus was on Everton to be better after the interval and they were handed an opportunity to get back into the game immediately following the restart from the penalty spot. When Harrison seized on Pickford’s raking ball forward after it had bounced between Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ben White, the winger became involved in a tussle with the Arsenal man that ended with Harrison going down in the box.
Referee Darren England pointed to the spot and after a VAR review had determined that no clear and obvious error had occurred — it was soft but Lewis-Skelly did fall on Harrison’s leg, taking him down — Ndiaye shrugged off the attempts from Raya and Jorginho to put him off by slotting home a confidently-taken penalty to level the scores.
1-1 could have become 2-1 to the home side as Ndiaye robbed Ben White inside his own half and Gueye pounced on the loose ball to send Doucouré away but, hammering his shot to Raya’s right where Trossard had gone across the keeper, the forward was foiled.
Substitute Bakayo Saka drilled a direct free-kick into the wall and Rice’s own set-piece effort was fisted way by Pickford but England’s number one’s best moment, a stunning finger-tip save that guided another Trosssard drive over his crossbar, ended up counting for nothing when the referee whistled for a foul on Branthwaite moments before.
Moyes, who had already replaced Beto with Armando Broja and Iroegbunam with Garner, withdrew the cramping Ndiaye for Alcaraz and Patterson for Ashley Young but if there was to be a late winner, it looked more likely to come from Arsenal.
Martin Ødegaard had a chance to grab it but miscued Gabriel Martinelli’s cross at the near post while the Brazilian would force one last save from Pickford when he skinned O’Brien and cut into his right foot but saw his shot parried away to safety.
So two of the top flight’s draw specialists who now have tied 25 games between them season, including the reverse fixture at the Emirates in December, cancelled each other out again and what was a hugely promising nine-match unbeaten run for Everton has morphed into a somewhat frustrating sequence of six matches without a win.
Things don’t get any easier over the remainder of the month, with three more games against the current top five to come. How Moyes approaches those in terms of formation and personnel will be intriguing, particularly given that, like Ndiaye, Dwight McNeil is now back fit after making a late appearance off the bench after four months out with a knee injury.