Everton scraped past Arsenal in today’s evening encounter, leaving the Gunners hopes of European football in doubt.
We started the match slowly, and it certainly wasn’t the greatest spectacle early on.
Thomas Partey was our main outlet, provided our front men, but it was very telling that we were without both Alexandre Lacazette and Aubameyang this evening.
I can’t recall a single shot on target for us in the opening 45 minutes, Everton challenged Leno when Richarlison created his own space inside the box to get his shot away, while the most exciting moment came from Gylfi Sigurdsson’s free-kick which smashed off the crossbar.
The second-half didn’t appear to be much better initially, but around five minutes in there was a penalty call. Dani Ceballos was brought down in the box (I admit this would have been soft), but upon a VAR review Nicolas Pepe was deemed to have been offside in the build-up.
We pushed on after this however, and was starting to look much more dominant in midfield, and was beginning to assert ourselves on the match.
That man Pepe was our main source in the final third, although he may well have appeared to have been trying a little too hard to force the issue, and he was then replaced by Odegaard with just over 15 minutes left on the clock.
That change was shortly followed by the opening goal however, as a breakaway by the Merseyside boys saw Richarlison run deep into the box, and he looked set to square only for Bernd Leno to mess up his lines.
Despite 15 minutes left to play, the next noteworthy incident came in the dying moments when Gabriel Martinelli forced a super save out of Jordan Pickford.
This all-round performance was miles from where it needed to be, and I can’t grumble at the result.
Everton most likely didn’t deserve the victory either, but if one team looked more like scoring it was them.
Patrick