Arsenal 3-2 Everton: Gunners come out on top of end-to-end game between two work-in-progress Premier League sides
Intrigue was never going to be in short supply in a match between two Premier League teams overhauled by high-profile new managers still harbouring faint hopes of European qualification.
Still, Arsenal’s narrow victory in a five-goal contest that swung one way then the other – from Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s acrobatic first-minute goal to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s decisive brace – delivered and then some.
The Gunners and Everton looked much improved under Mikel Arteta and Carlo Ancelotti respectively, yet their all-too-visible frailties mean both remain a long way off the finished articles.
Liberated strikers
Ancelotti’s effect on Everton has been the most pronounced, the former AC Milan and Real Madrid coach engineering five wins from eight league games since taking charge in December, and the reasons were on show here.
A liberated front two of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison troubled Arsenal all afternoon and both scored, albeit with contrasting levels of style and aided by hapless defending.
Calvert-Lewin’s seventh in 10 games under Ancelotti was an overhead kick with the outside of his right boot after Arsenal defender David Luiz made a mess of clearing a free-kick.
Richarlison’s equaliser for 2-2 also owed something to the hosts’ set-piece weakness, the Brazilian getting a faint prod to a Yerry Mina knock-down and scuffing it under goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
Elusive blend
The downside for Ancelotti is that Everton should have scored more – their expected goals was 2.41 to Arsenal’s 1.38 – and an effective midfield blend remains elusive.
Defensively they were too easily bypassed as well, especially in the corridor between full-back Djibril Sidibe and the centre-backs. Arsenal’s first two goals sprung from that area.
Arteta, meanwhile, will reflect on two instances of the kind of kamikaze defending he has worked so hard to reduce – and others that escaped unpunished by Everton.
Having regained the lead straight after half-time, they spent most of the second period hanging on, inviting Everton to attack them and showing little cutting edge nor even inclination to advance.
Work in progress
They remain a work in progress in the final third, with the Spaniard having prioritised shoring up a leaky defence – whatever the evidence here – and still struggle for controlled possession.
The positives outweighed the negatives, however, and Arteta had reason to be pleased with the contributions of Aubameyang, Eddie Nketiah, Dani Ceballos, Buyako Saka and Leno.
Aubameyang’s first, for 2-1, was a placed finish straight out of Thierry Henry’s playbook and the second a firm downward header from a Nicolas Pepe cross. No one has more than his 17 league goals this term.
Youngsters Nketiah and Saka combined for the former’s first top-flight goal of the season on his second start, a classy cushioned volley from the left-back’s inviting early cross.
Long-standing flaws
Ceballos continued where he left off in last weekend’s four-goal win over Newcastle, with a dynamic display full of the kind of positive forward passing his midfield team-mates have been guilty of shirking.
Finally, Leno – arguably at fault for Everton’s second – rescued his team with a sprawling point-blank save from Calvert-Lewin.
It was enough to earn Arteta the first consecutive league wins of his tenure – Arsenal’s first since August – and their third victory in eight days. They remain unbeaten under the Spaniard in 2020.
A win over Everton is not insignificant, bursting the bubble of a rival for the European places and overtaking them to go ninth, four points of Manchester United in fifth.
The question now is whether two teams grappling with long-standing flaws can sustain their resurgence.