That’s all from me! I’ll leave you with Andy Hunter’s match report from Goodison Park…
Elsewhere in the Premier League today…
Ipswich v Wolves
Crystal Palace v Brighton
West Ham v Bournemouth
Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest
The Premier League table now looks like this. Liverpool can stretch their lead to 14 points if they beat Fulham at Craven Cottage tomorrow. Nottingham Forest visit Aston Villa in today’s late game, knowing a win would take them within two points (and a load of goal difference) from Arsenal in second. Everton, meanwhile, are 15 points (and a load of goal difference) away from the bottom three, and the point takes them above Spurs and West Ham to 14th, for now at least.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 30 | 43 | 73 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 31 | 30 | 62 |
| 3 | Nottm Forest | 30 | 15 | 57 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 30 | 17 | 52 |
| 5 | Man City | 30 | 17 | 51 |
| 6 | Newcastle | 29 | 10 | 50 |
| 7 | Aston Villa | 30 | -1 | 48 |
| 8 | Brighton | 30 | 3 | 47 |
| 9 | Fulham | 30 | 4 | 45 |
| 10 | AFC Bournemouth | 30 | 11 | 44 |
| 11 | Brentford | 30 | 4 | 41 |
| 12 | Crystal Palace | 29 | 3 | 40 |
| 13 | Man Utd | 30 | -4 | 37 |
| 14 | Everton | 31 | -5 | 35 |
| 15 | Tottenham Hotspur | 30 | 11 | 34 |
| 16 | West Ham | 30 | -17 | 34 |
| 17 | Wolverhampton | 30 | -17 | 29 |
| 18 | Ipswich | 30 | -33 | 20 |
| 19 | Leicester | 30 | -42 | 17 |
| 20 | Southampton | 30 | -49 | 10 |
Final score: Everton 1-1 Arsenal
90+5 mins: The ball is lifted into the area, where Raya catches it. O’Brien blocks his clearance again, but the referee is busy blowing for full-time.
Updated
90+4 mins: A high ball drops towards Tarkowski, and just as he is about to head it Trossard kicks out a foot in his vague neighbourhood. He doesn’t make any contact, but everyone gets very upset about it.
90+3 mins: Arsenal focus an attack on the right, trying to find space either to cross or shoot. They manage neither, but they do force Ashley Young to concede a corner.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, and there’ll be four minutes of it, or thereabouts.
89 mins: And another chance! Tierney’s cross from the left is excellent and Merino, now sporting a black bandage around his head, is all but unmarked as he heads wide at the near post.
88 mins: Alcaraz gets a yellow card for stopping Arsenal taking the free-kick after he fouled Trossard.
86 mins: Another player who’s been out since November with a knee injury: Dwight McNeil comes on for Harrison.
85 mins: And a save! Martinelli receives the ball on the left, cuts inside O’Brien and shoots powerfully across goal, but it’s nowhere near the corner and Pickford pushes it away.
83 mins: There is a chance! Tierney, from the left byline, pulls back to Odegaard, who almost completely mishits it off one foot into the other leg and wide.
80 mins: Ten minutes to play, the game in the balance. It hasn’t been short of action or incident, but there haven’t been a lot of chances.
Updated
77 mins: Saved! But a foul anyway! Branthwaite and Trossard go for the ball and the Everton player goes down. Trossard, suddenly clear, hits a volley from 15 yards too close to Pickford, who saves just as the referee’s whistle sounds.
75 mins: And that’s the end of Ndiaye’s game. He’s played very well, and gets a standing ovation as Ashley Young replaces him. Patterson also goes off, and Carlos Alcaraz comes on. Arsenal bring Kieran Tierney on for Lewis-Skelly at the same time.
74 mins: A brief stoppage while Ndiaye deals with some cramp.
70 mins: Arsenal take Jorginho off and bring on Odegaard. All of their substitutions have felt predetermined both in timing and personnel, which isn’t ideal but I suppose reflects the position they find themselves in.
69 mins: Raya catches the retake and is blocked by O’Brien as he tries an early clearance. It’s clearly a foul, but the referee ignores it. Meanwhile the blood has started to seep through Merino’s Vaseline carapace, so he is off the pitch.
68 mins: Everton have a corner, and Timber marks Tarkowski. Timber stands in front of the Everton player, his back to the ball, and then goes down after a slight touch just as the ball comes in. The referee has a word with them both before ordering a retake.
65 mins: Everton bring on James Garner and Armando Broja for Beto and Iroegbunam.
64 mins: Saved! Rice hits a shot that is clean, hard, and straight at Pickford, who will have seen it late but barely had to move.
63 mins: An excellent run from Lewis-Skelly ends with him being fouled by Tarkowski, who is booked. Arsenal have another shooting chance from the free-kick, this one even better than the last, pretty central and just on the edge of the D.
Updated
61 mins: Arsenal make another substitution, this time bringing Jurrien Timber on for Ben White, who before today had played nine minutes of Premier League football since he sustained a knee injury in November.
59 mins: Saka’s low shot thunders into the wall.
58 mins: Jorginho is fouled a couple of yards outside Everton’s penalty area, and Arsenal will have a decent shooting chance. Rice and Saka stand over it.
55 mins: There haven’t been many replays of the penalty incident, but on first and indeed second viewing it looks a bit weak to me. Lewis-Skelly certainly misjudged the bounce of the ball and found himself very poorly positioned, but I’m not convinced that Harrison was actually brought down.
54 mins: Arsenal win a corner, their second since the goal. The first was underhit by Rice and headed clear, this one is deliberately sent well beyond the far post, from where an unmarked Trossard volleys high.
52 mins: Saved! Everton break, and Doucoure is played down the left. He probably should have looked to centre but when he gets into the area he takes a shot, which Raya beats away.
GOAL! Everton 1-1 Arsenal (Ndiaye, 49 mins)
Ndiaye sends Raya the wrong way, rolls the ball into an unguarded net and it’s all square!
Updated
48 mins: VAR confirms the penalty, and Jorginho is booked for arguing about and delaying it. Ndiaye has the ball.
Penalty to Everton!
47 mins: Everton have a penalty! The ball ends up back with Pickford and he plays the exact same pass, long and left to right, and this time Raya stays on his line and Harrison wrestles with Lewis-Skelly on the edge of the area. The Everton player gets ahead and goes down!
Updated
46 mins: Chaos! Pickford’s reciprocal long ball finds Raya coming out of his area without getting it, and Bayo briefly scenting an open net.
46 mins: Peeeep! Arsenal start the second half. Really badly, as it happens: Trossard lays the ball back to Raya, and he pumps the ball all the way to Pickford.
The players come back out, and there are substitutions to report: Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka come on for Arsenal, Ethan Nwaneri and Raheem Sterling go off.
An email! “Watching the ball disappear into the midday shadows at Goodison on TV, it strikes me as strange that while Neolithic passage grave builders could calculate the movement of the sun and it’s effects on their constructions, the Victorians and even some mid-20th century stadium-builders failed to do this,” writes Justin Kavanagh. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to criticise the architects behind Goodison Park for being insufficiently considerate, at some point in the late 1880s, of the potential impact of their design on future television viewers.
Updated
Half time: Everton 0-1 Arsenal
45+7 mins: The whistle blows, and there are boos from the crowd as the players head for the tunnel.
45+6 mins: Everton manage to work a shooting chance for Ndiaye on the edge of the area, but the shot curls over the bar.
45+3 mins: Now they nearly score! The ball is lifted over the Everton defence and Trossard runs through. As he prepares to shoot Tarkowski slides in from behind, and if Trossard had gone down over him he would surely have won a penalty. Instead he stretches for the ball and prods it into Pickford, the ball then rebounds to Rice whose shot on the turn is blocked.
45+2 mins: Arsenal have dominated possession since the injury hiatus. They’re not doing anything much with it, mind.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there’ll be at least six minutes.
43 mins: Play briefly resumed, before Trossard goes down for a while. Some fans are booing, perhaps understandably given they’ve spent the best part of 10 minutes watching Arsenal players be injured.
41 mins: There is blood. Happily, though, both players are on their feet. Merino has had significant amounts of Vaseline applied to his head to stem the bleeding.
38 mins: Everton have reacted well to the goal. Harrison’s excellent, dipping from the left is headed behind. O’Brien and Merino head each other in competing for it, and both require treatment.
35 mins: At the end of a long period characterised by Everton’s discipline, particularly in midfield, that was not great defending, with Sterling allowed to run too far, and Trossard not effectively closed down, the shot eventually going through the legs of O’Brien.
GOAL! Everton 0-1 Arsenal (Trossard, 35 mins)
A lovely finish by Trossard, who drills a low, left-footed shot across goal from just inside the area after Sterling led a counter-attack with a long run.
Updated
32 mins: Arsenal struggle to advance the ball through midfield again, so without any better ideas Lewis-Skelly dives and wins a free-kick.
27 mins: Arsenal have the ball in their half for a while, trying to find short forward passes through a crowded midfield, before finally giving up, going long and punting it out of play. Good work from Everton there to close off those passing lanes.
24 mins: Tarkowski gives the ball away and Arsenal have a three-on-two break. Bur Branthwaite positions himself well, sees an opportunity to dispossess Trossard and takes it impeccably.
22 mins: Nice work on the right by Arsenal eventually earns a crossing position. Sadly, it earns it for Jakub Kiwior. Goal kick.
20 mins: Sterling runs down the left, goes down a little theatrically, doesn’t get a free-kick, kind of semi-gets up, goes down again and still doesn’t get a free-kick.
18 mins: O’Brien is booked, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, though it looks like he fouled Kiwior in the build-up to that chance.
16 mins: What a chance for Everton! Talking of set-piece delivery, that one was spectacular, a free-kick from the right curling and bouncing into the area. O’Brien at the far post is clearly completely astonished that it found its way through to him and it pretty much just bounces off him, away from goal.
15 mins: A fine start from Arsenal, and notably excellent set-piece delivery from both wings, but beyond punching one of those away Jordan Pickford remains unworked.
12 mins: Another Arsenal corner. This time Rice’s centre might have been curling in at the far post, but Branthwaite flicks a header clear from practically under his crossbar.
Updated
10 mins: Everton have the ball on halfway and Doucoure makes a completely untracked run forward into bewildering amounts of space down the middle. The pass, though, doesn’t pick him out and Arsenal get away with it.
8 mins: Good work from Everton on the break, but the chance doesn’t quite come. N’Diaye plays in Beto, who’s pushed wide by Saliba but backheels to Doucoure, who is closed down before he can shoot.
7 mins: Arsenal keep up the pressure. They win the ball high up and pass infield to Merino, who looks to be in a decent shooting position but instead plays a poor pass to the overlapping Sterling.
5 mins: Sterling now wins a corner on the left. Rice takes it, and Beto heads it behind for another.
2 mins: Chance for Arsenal! It’s pulled back from the right to Sterling, whose first-time shot flies into Iroegbunam rather than into the net. There was really no path to goal there given Iroegbunam’s positioning, unless Sterling took a touch to take the ball away from him.
Updated
1 min: Everton win a free kick on the right. They try to send it into the penalty area, but miss.
1 min: Peeeeep! Everton start the game, and Trossard is indeed playing at centre forward.
So, who is up front for Arsenal today? Consensus seems to be that Trossard will play there rather than Merino, but we’re about to find out for sure.
The players are exiting the tunnel! Kick-off is just four earth minutes away.
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There’s also this from Andy Hunter on the furore surrounding James Tarkowski since his ridiculously underpunished foul on Alexis Mac Allister on Wednesday:
Everton have condemned threats aimed at James Tarkowski in the aftermath of the Merseyside derby and pledged to work with social media companies and police on any investigations into online abuse.
Tarkowski’s wife, Samantha, said the Everton defender had received death threats after Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at Liverpool and that the family had also been the target of vile abuse. Tarkowski was booked for a reckless 11th-minute tackle on Alexis Mac Allister in the derby and Howard Webb, head of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, has admitted to Liverpool the challenge was worthy of a red card.
The central defender apologised to Mac Allister after the game and Arne Slot, Liverpool’s head coach, welcomed the admission of an error from PGMOL. But that has not stopped abuse of Tarkowski and his family.
Much more here:
Some pre-match reading courtesy of Ed Aarons, who heard Mikel Arteta demand a bigger squad to deal with the intensity of a modern season:
Mikel Arteta believes squad sizes must be increased to cope with the demands placed on players by the increased number of games and has warned that more will suffer serious injuries if the schedule continues to expand.
Arsenal confirmed on Thursday that Gabriel Magalhães had become the latest member of Arteta’s squad to sustain a hamstring injury, with the Brazilian set for surgery and out for the rest of the season. He joins Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Riccardo Calafiori on the sidelines, although there was better news for Arsenal on Jurriën Timber and Ben White before Saturday’s game at Everton.
Much more here:
Mikel Arteta has a chat, saying his team’s main task today is to “hide the weaknesses that we have, with Gabi [freshly-injured defender Gabriel Magalhães] as well we have some others, and play to our strengths”.
We had many other niggles. After the Fulham game we had some issues. What we are playing for is that important that you just have to move on, you have to demand the players to step in again. Gabi has a very important role, something that is not easy to replace.
The teams!
The line-ups in full:
Everton: Pickford, O’Brien, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Patterson, Gueye, Iroegbunam, Harrison, Doucoure, Ndiaye, Beto. Subs: Virginia, Keane, McNeil, Chermiti, Young, Broja, Coleman, Alcaraz, Garner.
Arsenal: Raya, Kiwior, Saliba, White, Lewis-Skelly, Nwaneri, Jorginho, Rice, Sterling, Merino, Trossard. Subs: Neto, Tierney, Partey, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Timber, Zinchenko, Gower.
Referee: Darren England.
With half an eye on a home game against Real Madrid on Tuesday Arsenal make five changes, with Martin Odegaard on the bench alongside Bukayo Saka. Their starting XI looks like this: Raya, White, Saliba, Kiwior, Rice, Jorginho, Lewis-Skelly, Nwaneri, Trossard, Sterling, Merino.
Hello world!
“Now,” Mikel Arteta said as he looked ahead to this game, “we have the most important, beautiful part of the season.”
Well that is a cheery thought. The sun is shining, I just walked the dog without needing so much as a jacket, the County Championship has begun, summer feels around the corner, and the routine of football, the league’s relentless grind, is coalescing – perhaps only briefly given the nature of this season’s title and relegation races – into something different, something vital. Having put in the groundwork, having shivered and cursed our way through winter, we need to cherish these moments.
And this might be a key one. Having lost to Liverpool on Wednesday Everton complete their three-day top-two play-off against an Arsenal side that has had an extra day off since their 2-1 win over Fulham, and has zero room for error as they attempt to turn Liverpool’s title procession into something more fraught.
For Everton, with fears of relegation perhaps only one win away from being definitively dispelled, the rest of this season is about setting a standard, creating a platform for more satisfying campaigns to come. "It’s a good test for us now. We were nine unbeaten and it’s about that character now,” said Jordan Pickford. “We’ve tasted defeat against Liverpool, which is never nice for us, but it’s about how do we build and get a result at Goodison against Arsenal. You want those challenges week in, week out. Our resilience as a team was good [against Liverpool] and we need to build on that because we have a few tough games [he’s not kidding – Nottingham Forest (a), Manchester City (h) and Chelsea (a) follow this one], but that’s what the Premier League is all about, playing really good teams.”
Well, not always, but sure.
