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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 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.
“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.
