Some defeats are more painful than others. This one felt like a gut punch. In the grand scheme of things, the point that slipped through Everton’s fingers at the Emirates Stadium this evening might not end up being decisive in the chase for Europe but it would have felt like a victory had they managed to hold on.
The fawning media chatter will all be about Arsenal, the huge step they took towards finally grinding their way to the title, and their 16-year-old prodigy, Max Dowman, who wrested from James Vaughan the mantle of youngest ever Premier league goal-scorer deep into stoppage time. But what will be lost in the conversation is just how close Everton came to pulling off an away-day master class.
For 88 minutes of this televised clash in the Capital, the Toffees were the more deserving of the points. Sure, Arsenal had had the lion’s share of possession but for all their toil, they had been brilliantly stifled by David Moyes’s charges and were the half the width of the post and a freakish piece of improvisation by Riccardo Calafiori away from being a couple of goals down by half-time.
Unfortunately, when Jordan Pickford made a fateful error of judgement just as Everton were closing in on a hard-won point, Lady Luck opted instead for the Gunners, handing Viktor Gyökeres a tap-in to effectively win the match. Dowman then galloped away to score an equally easy goal at the end to give the scoreline a hugely flattering complexion in Arsenal’s favour.
It was rough justice on the Blues because, despite having lost their two first-choice centre-halves to injury to add to the long-term absence of Jack Grealish, they turned in a dogged display; almost impregnable at the back when they needed to be and surprisingly dangerous at the other end when they could be, at least until the latter stages when they were hemmed into their own half for long spells.
Moyes may wonder what might have been possible had he been able to call on a reliable striker capable of holding the ball up or bullying the likes of William Sadiba and Gabriel in the way the Arsenal pair did Beto; others might bemoan his maintaining a defensive posture right to the end but in light of where Everton are in their rebuilding process, this was hugely encouraging.
The Scot’s line-up had an element of makeshift about it with James Tarkowski joining Jarrad Branthwaite in the treatment room after picking up an unspecified training ground injury during the week. James Garner dropped back to right-back with Jake O’Brien shifting inside to centre-half alongside Michael Keane while Tim Iroegbunam got the nod in central midfield.
Dwight McNeil kept his place wide on the right and he’ll no doubt have spent the trip back to Merseyside wondering how he didn’t score. The hosts had established the expected pattern of the contest by dominating possession in the early stages and forcing a couple of corners but the only time they tested Pickford was when he palmed Bakayo Saka’s header past the post superbly before the offside flag swiftly rendered it all moot.
But it was Everton who carved out the first real chance in the 17th minute when Iliman Ndiaye rolled Jurien Timber on the touchline, drove forward and clipped a cross that fell to McNeil whose control and close-range volley looked destined for the net. At first it appeared as though David Raya had made a terrific save but replays showed it was Calafiori who, on his hands and knees, had stuck an instinctive leg in the air to block the winger’s effort.
Everton got the ball back almost straight away and, gliding in from the right flank, McNeil gratefully accepted the space afforded him to line up one of his trademark left-footers that he whipped around Raya but agonisingly off the face of the upright.
Just shy of a quarter of an hour later, after Kai Havertz had had a penalty shout when he went down under Keane’s challenge waved away by referee, Andy Madley, Raya was called into action again when Idrissa Gueye found Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall just outside the box but his shot was pushed away by the goalkeeper.
And despite the Gunners’ superior possession, it was Everton who continued to carve out the genuine chances either side of the break. Ndiaye, outstanding in flashes as always, saw an effort of his own saved on the stroke of half time. Then, four minutes into the second period, a Garner corner dropped to Beto with his back to goal and, having swivelled to get a shot away, he was denied by a smart stop by Raya with his foot by his left-hand post.
It was then that the tide began to turn. Everton had spent most of the game to that point sitting pretty deep in a containment pattern and they would fall back further as Arsenal tried to turn the screw.
It wasn’t until the 64th minute and a first-time curling short by Eberechi Eze, though, that Arsenal really looked like scoring and after Keane had flashed a header from a free-kick at the other end, Eze forced a parrying save from Pickford with a powerful drive while Dowman, on as a 74th-minute substitute for Martin Zubimendi, spooned over from 20 yards with seven minutes to go.
It was shortly after that point that Moyes turned to his bench for a second time, having already brought Thierno Barry on for Beto 17 minutes earlier. Merlin Röhl and Harrison Armstrong were thrown on for Iroegbunam and McNeil but just how much effect that had on what had been a magnificently organised rearguard action to that point is hard to say.
Regardless, having held Arsenal at bay for all bar a couple of minutes of the regulation 90, Everton’s defiance was broken in heartbreaking fashion as their luck deserted them.
Dowman turned inside from the Gunners’ righty and whipped a dangerous ball in that Pickford ill-advisedly made a play for. At full stretch, the keeper could only finger-tip it onto Piero Hincapié who had ghosted in behind Armstrong at the back post and the ball bounced off the Ecuadorian and across the six-yard box where Gyökeres was completely open to score.
Then came the salt in Everton’s wounds. So much of the talk in the week had surrounded Arsenal’s propensity to win ugly and their reliance on set-piece goals but the Toffees had successfully repelled everything they’d thrown at them from dead-ball situations.
Ironically, the North Londoners did score from a corner… Everton’s “Hail Mary” where Pickford was sent up to add an extra body, the set-piece found an Arsenal head and when the ball fell to Downman, he raced away to pass it into the empty goal to put a decidedly unfair gloss on the final score from Arteta’s perspective.
As gutting as this result was, there was so much to admire from this Everton performance — the kind that points to a solid foundation on which to further build this summer. Moyes, perhaps looking at his options at centre-forward, was clearly hoping to protect the point rather than go for the jugular at the end and, ultimately he left with nothing. The neutral observer might say that the spoils went to the team that was actively trying to win it.
That would ignore, of course, the disparity in talent and resources available to the respective sides but even then it was a very close-run thing. On another day and with a touch more fortune Everton might easily have pulled off a shock win that would have kept the title race more interesting than this result appears to have done. Arteta surely knows he got away with one today…