Everton weren’t quite down to the bare bones for this meeting with the Premier League leaders but they were close and the chronic lack of depth that will hamper David Moyes during the busy Festive period and beyond was painfully evident at Bramley-Moore Dock tonight.
The build-up, featuring a team welcome, fireworks and a massive tifo in a South Stand filled with card-bearing fans depicting the “blue wave” envisioned by Hill Dickinson Stadium architect Dan Meis, was pulsating. By contrast, the performance that followed from the workman-like Toffees was energetic but blunt to say the least.
For long periods it looked and felt as though the first-half goal gift-wrapped for Arsenal was all Mikel Areta’s men would need, such was Everton’s inability to cause David Raya or their back line any real problems — though if there were any justice or consistency in the application of the rules by Video Assistant Referee, Michael Salisbury, the hosts would have been given the chance to level from the spot for William Saliba’s foul on Thierno Barry.
Had Jack Grealish been fully fit — he is clearly blighted by a hamstring issue and is playing well within himself at the moment as a result — and both Iliman Ndiaye and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall been available, this would undoubtedly have been a more interesting and more even contest.
Without their key creative outlets, however, and with Dwight McNeil and Charly Alcaraz toiling unsuccessfully as visibly inferior alternatives, chances for Moyes’s side were almost non-existent against an Arsenal team that heads both the English and Champions League heading into Christmas and who struck the post twice in the second half.
It’s unfortunate that even though they lacked the quality needed to break the Gunners down, Everton’s industry was ultimately let down by a moment of madness from Jake O’Brien midway through the first half that ended up being the difference on the night.
Prior to that, a 20-odd minute phoney war had played out by the docks as the two sides sized each other up. Barry almost had a chance open up when O’Brien’s long throw fell to him close to goal but his attempt to turn it in was blocked by Jurien Timber.
A few minutes later, Alcaraz did well to roll Martin Zubemendi but then over-ran the ball in a moment that would encapsulate the Argentine’s frustrating evening and which preceded the first real stirrings from the visitors in an attacking sense.
Michael Keane stabbed Bukayo Saka’s cut-back from the byline out to the edge of the box and Zubemendi lashed over the bar. Viktor Gjökores then headed a Martin Ødegaard cross wide before Timber’s centre was deflected towards the back post where Gjökores went sprawling under the attentions of James Tarkowski but Arsenal appeals for a penalty were waved away.
They would be awarded their spot-kick following the ensuing corner which was whipped into the six-yard box in trademark fashion by Declan Rice but, jumping to challenge Riccardo Calafiori, O’Brien threw both arms in the air and practically caught the ball above his head, contact with the hands that was missed by referee Sam Barrott but was unmistakable on the replays studied by VAR Salisbury. Gjökores hammered his penalty past Jordan Pickford and depleted Everton’s hill became a mountain from that point.
They managed to get to half-time without further damage as Rice blazed over from 20 yards, Gjökores sliced wide at the back post under a tackle from Tarkowski and Saka failed to punish Alcaraz for his latest wayward pass when he dropped a header wide from the Swedish striker’s cross.
The half-time interval brought no change in personnel or approach from Moyes and the pattern established late in the first half continued into the second. Leandro Trossard almost fashioned an opening when he drove in towards goal but was foiled by Pickford while Timber got to the byline and cut it back for Saka but the England winger’s shot was cleared away from his goal line by Tarkowski before the Blues had their first significant shout for a penalty of their own.
Barry was sent tumbling by Zubemendi right on the edge of the box in the 52nd minute but the referee gave nothing and Salisbury deemed it to be “a coming together”. Five minutes later, the French striker was left prone clutching his ankle following clear contact by Saliba who kicked through him trying to clear a loose ball but, once again, the officials refused to intervene.
Arsenal threatened to put the game to bed as first Trossard bent a shot around Pickford but saw it smack off the post and then Zubamendi rattled the same upright with a low drive.
That left the game delicately poised for the final 20-odd minutes but Everton, with Beto on for Barry and then Tyler Dibling and Merlin Röhl on in place of McNeil and Alcaraz, were unable to trouble the Londoners’ goal despite all their huff and puff.
Instead, the closest the match saw to another addition to the scoresheet was in the 90th minute when Tarkowski poked the ball inches past his own goal as he intercepted Calafiori’s through-ball.
Winning against the league leaders was always going to be a tall order but, having done the hard work in largely containing Arsenal and making them look fairly ordinary at times, Everton shot themselves in the foot with O’Brien’s mistake. The desperate lack of quality at the other end meant that retrieving the situation was always going to be difficult and so it proved.
The next set of fixtures until Moyes takes his side to Villa Park in mid-January is more forgiving but without their key creative components, the points will need to be ground out with much more needed from those second-stringers hoping to impress enough to stake a claim.