Here’s Andy Hunter’s match report. Thanks for your company, bye!
Full time: Everton 0-2 Arsenal
An accomplished performance from Arsenal keeps them in the title race. They were outstanding in the first half, when Danny Welbeck and Alex Iwobi scored, and comfortable in the second.
We’ll have a match report from Goodison Park any second now, and you can follow the 3pm games – including Crystal Palace v Leicester – with Gregg Bakowski.
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90+3 min Giroud, fed by Chambers, splashes a shot wide of the near post from 10 yards. He should have scored.
90 min You’ll get five minutes of added time, and you’ll be thankful for them.
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88 min Funes Mori’s flat, narrow cross is headed straight at Ospina by Lukaku, ten yards from goal. It was a difficult chance because of the trajectory of the cross.
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86 min Sanchez’s momentum takes him over the hoardings and in with the Everton fans. He decides to have a breather and take a seat for a few seconds. A kid pats him on the back. It’s not like the old days.
Calum Chambers has come on for Iwobi, who had a fine full Premier League debut.
84 min “Just a doubt I’ve had for quite some time now,” says Prasit Ghimire. “Removing a jersey in celebration results in yellow but what if the player (presumably balotelli) has the exact replica of the jersey underneath? Is it still a yellow?” That is simultaneously the best and worst question I have ever been asked. I assume it’s still a yellow, but I’ve got Howard Webb on Snapchat so I’ll check.
83 min Giroud has a goal disallowed by Mark Clattenburg. He headed Sanchez’s corner into the net from six yards, but the whistle had gone for a foul by Iwobi on Jagielka. It was soft but probably correct.
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82 min Giroud tries to run through onto Sanchez’s pass and is deliberately tripped off the ball by Funes Mori, but Mark Clattenburg doesn’t see the incident. That should have been a foul on the edge of the box and a yellow card.
81 min Ospina seems okay now, and Arsenal have weathered the storm mild gusts of a few minutes ago.
80 min Coleman leaves a foot in on Monreal, a deliberate and nasty challenge. He should have been booked.
78 min Coleman tries to pick a fight with Coquelin, who ignores him.
77 min “No Arsenal bias, as I am a Villa fan so obviously just hate myself and football in general,” begins Jamie A, “but is Mr Clattenburg having a bit of an odd game and missing several obvious decisions in Arsenal’s favour?” I haven’t really noticed that, apart from the penalty. And the Bellerin bodycheck. So yeah.
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75 min Arsenal make a double substitution, with the excellent pair of Danny Welbeck and Mesut Ozil replaced by Kieran Gibbs and Olivier Giroud. Ozil is limping after an accidental collision with Stones, though I don’t think it’s anything serious.
73 min An Everton substitution: Gerard Deulofeu replaces the quiet Ross Barkley.
72 min Lennon lays the ball off to Cleverley, who misdirects a fierce shot from 15 yards. Ospina’s injury has strangely given Everton some momentum.
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70 min That was a great chance for Jagielka. In fact he mistimed his jump and knocked it over the bar from six yards with his shoulder. He should have scored because Ospina was nowhere.
68 min Ospina is continuing for now, though he’s limping around his penalty area. Matt Macey is the reserve keeper. Everton win a corner and sensibly dump it right under the crossbar. Ospina is all over the place but Jagielka heads over.
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66 min Ospina just beats the sliding Lukaku to a dangerous low cross from Coleman, after which the two collide. At first it seemed like Lukaku had slid into Ospina’s head at speed; now it looks more like his back or side. That’s less of a worry, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to carry on.
65 min All is explained.
Hilarious pop fact: no member of 'The Drifters' who just performed at Half-Time at Goodison Park has been with them since earlier than 2008.
— Simon Price (@simon_price01) March 19, 2016
63 min This new Arsenal structure works well, with Elneny and Coquelin acting as servants for a very dangerous front four.
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62 min “It’s all well and good to do it at Goodison,” says Raimond Skrupskis. “But can they do it on a cold, rainy night in Barcelona?”
61 min The marauding Bellerin knocks the ball one side of Funes Mori and attempts to run round the other before he is blatantly bodychecked. Mark Clatternburg says play on.
60 min “The Drifters?” sniffs Joseph Rega. “Bit of ageism creeping in? Only the best R&B vocal group of all time, bridging the gap between doo-wop rock. Contemporaries of The Beatles, etc. Ben E. King, Clyde McPhatter, etc., etc. How soon they forget...”
No ageism creeping in here, though please don’t let me stop you taking offence if need your daily outrage. I was surprised that a group of their significance were playing a football ground at half-time.
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58 min Arsenal break two-on-one, with Iwobi in possession and Ozil with his own personal postcode to the left, but Iwobi’s pass is really poor and goes out for a throw-in.
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54 min Arsenal could get a tennis score here; they are in complete control and the entitled whining of the Everton fans is perpetuating itself.
52 min A pathetic backpass from Stones gives Welbeck to chance to run through on goal, but he recovers well to get back and stop Welbeck getting a shot on goal.
51 min “Two-nil down at home,” says Doug Morrison. “What to do? Bring on a defender, of course. The strange world of Roberto Martinez. He will have to go for Everton to make progress. As in his days at Wigan, he cannot organise a defence. Bring in Eddie Howe.”
Eddie Howe is great, but Bournemouth have conceded more goals than anyone outside the bottom four! Maybe Everton need someone who is excellent at organising a defence, like David Moyes.
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50 min Lukaku beats Gabriel with multiple stepovers but then drills a cross that is easily intercepted by Koscielny at the near post.
48 min Bellerin is so good going forward, and he starts another move that ends with Ozil’s sidefoot from 10 yards being blocked by a defender.
47 min Michael Owen, bless him, explains the concept of Marmite in reference to teams who play three at the back.
On @SundaySupp from 9: @ncustisTheSun, @JNorthcroft and @johncrossmirror. pic.twitter.com/vQG0Y84o72
— Neil Ashton (@neilashton_) March 19, 2016
Lovely counter attack by #arsenal Sanchez, Iwobi & Welbeck have been a menace so far today vs #everton on @btsport pace & movement galore.
— Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) March 19, 2016
46 min Peep peep!
Half-time substitution John Stones ends his loan spell at Coventry, coming on to replace Besic. Everton have gone to a back three.
The half-time entertainment at Goodison Park is... The Drifters! The bloody Drifters! “This is what they’re doing with all the money they’ve got now...” says my colleague Gregg Bakowski.
Here’s the league table as things stand
Arsenal fans: it’s on! Okay, it’s not necessarily on, but it’s not off either.
Italia 90 chit-chat
“That Berti header (10 min) also illustrates what a complete liability Shilton had become,” says Martin Widdicks. “The header ends up in the middle of the goal with Shilton’s feet firmly stuck to the floor as they were for all four of the pens in the semi final. Disclaimer: as a Forest fan, it can’t be all be Pearce’s fault, right?”
You say that, and I agree he got his tactics wrong for the penalties, but without him England would have lost 48-3 to Cameroon in the quarter-final.
Half-time chit-chat
“It’s non-calls like that Sanchez appeal that always make me less critical of diving or going down easily,” says Brendan Pulsford. “ What are the players supposed to do when refs view attempts to stay on their feet as a sign there wasn’t heavy contact? Yet if Alexis goes down, at least a few folks are going to say he went down softly.”
Yes, I agree. The issue is far more nuanced than most people seem to think. Perhaps we should encourage more tackles in the penalty area like this one, so as to leave little margin for misinterpretation.
Half time: Everton 0-2 Arsenal
Everton are booed off, but really Arsenal should be cheered off – they gave a masterclass of Wengerian football and lead through goals from Welbeck and Iwobi. See you in 10 minutes.
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45 min Two more chances for Arsenal. First Welbeck is denied by an excellent sliding challenge. Then Iwobi, released by Welbeck’s clever flick, rattles a shot wide of the near post from a tight angle.
Now the scoreline aptly reflects Arsenal’s majestic performance. It was a simple counter-attacking goal. Bellerin, who gets a helluva lot of assists for a defender, curled an excellent long pass that allowed Iwobi to charge through on goal from the halfway line. He ran into the box and slid the ball through Joel’s legs and into the net.
GOAL! Everton 0-2 Arsenal (Iwobi 42)
Alex Iwobi scores on his first Premier League start!
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39 min A corner to Everton on the right. They work it so well that within five seconds they are back in their own half, pottering around in possession.
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38 min Sanchez plays a penetrative square pass to Bellerin, who makes an out-to-in run before hitting a low 18-yard-shot that is blocked by Funes Mori.
36 min Howard Webb says it should have been a penalty for the original contact by Besic, regardless of when Sanchez went down.
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34 min Lennon runs 50 yards in thrilling style, and then he goes and spoils it all by doing something stupid like scuffing a cross straight at Koscielny.
Arsenal break, and Sanchez has a huge appeal for a penalty! He received Bellerin’s excellent cutback, tried to stay on his feet when he was clipped in the box by Besic and then fell over a couple of steps later. Mark Clattenburg wasn’t interested – but, as the commentators on BT have said, had Sanchez gone down upon contact he would probably have been given a penalty.
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33 min “Afternoon Rob,” says Guy Hornsby. “As a Spurs fan, I’m clearly cheering the Toffees on (and still getting my head round the T20 result last night). You can’t see this ending 1-0, though. Both teams have leaked goals and Everton’s home record means it’s unlikely they’ll only concede this one. I’ve jinxed it now, haven’t I?”
31 min “Never seen that Berti offside (10 min) before,” says Paul Kelly. “Even though it was only the 3rd/4th place game, that’s one of the worse offside decisions I’ve ever seen.”
Dreadful offside decisions were commonplace back then, if not quite as extreme as that. Our perception is altered slightly by the subsequent change in the offside law – level was offside in those days – but there will still umpteen shockers. Assistant refereeing has improved almost beyond belief.
29 min Possession percentage latest: Everton 42-58 Arsenal.
28 min Cleverley’s inducking cross is shanked high over his own bar by Gabriel. A corner to Everton on the left, to be taken by Baines. It’s a poor one and Arsenal clear.
26 min The home fans are starting to groan at misplaced passes, which is never a good sign.
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25 min Emails please!
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23 min Besic’s precise curler from 20 yards is pushed away by the diving Ospina. He should probably have held it but it mattered not a jot as he was able to get to his feet and collect.
21 min Another delicious move from Arsenal, this time involving Iwobi and Ozil, ends with Ozil’s shot from 15 yards being blocked desperately by Jagielka. I think that was going in the far corner.
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19 min Ozil, Sanchez and Welbeck, as well as combining for the goal, have all been superb in the first 18 minutes 23 seconds of this match.
16 min A dangerous cross from Lennon is very well defended by Gabriel, stretching towards his own goal.
13 min Arsenal have been brilliant so far. They are playing with the swagger of a team who have won their last 17 games, not a team who have been in crisis (sic) for the last month. You suspect there will be a few moodswings in this game, mind, as both sides are much better going forward than they are defending.
10 min Lukaku, put through on goal, is wrongly flagged offside. It was the wrong decision but, well, we’ve seen worse.
8 min Joel had to make another save, albeit relatively straightforward, straight after the goal. Not sure who it was from. You’re welcome!
That was class. Arsenal kept the ball for ages until Sanchez, to the right of centre, quickened things up with a short ball into Ozil. Then he took the return and slid a gentle through pass to Welbeck, who moved smoothly around the keeper to score. That was a beautiful goal, so clean and clinical. They won’t score goals like that under Claude and Ty.
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GOAL! Everton 0-1 Arsenal (Welbeck 7)
This is a glorious team goal!
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6 min “Talking of plugs for fantastic books,” says Ian Copestake, “I am sure Leicester City are now Malcolm Gladwell’s favourite team as they seem to confirm his ‘outlier’ theory.”
5 min “There’s more to the disquiet over Martinez than the quality of the players at his disposal,” writes Gary Naylor. “There have been rumblings for a while about the fitness and conditioning of the players and, with so many points lost in late collapses, there might be something in that. There’s concern too about a perceived reluctance to drill the defence on setpieces, which have been a problem this season. Roll in some strange substitutions and a propensity to talk up players like a fairground barker shilling a sideshow, and the malcontents have a point. I’m just – just – on the side of keeping him, but it’s a tight call even for a veteran of Wimbledon 1994 like me.”
As a reformed moron, this is what I think about it all.
4 min Ozil curls a corner towards Gabriel, unmarked 10 yards out, and he mishits a volley miles over the bar. This has been a very entertaining start.
2 min The vivacious Coleman wins a corner after 50 seconds, and then almost scores from it. It was drilled flat towards the near post by Cleverley, and Coleman got in front of two defenders at the corner of the six-yard box to flick the ball off the outside of the near post. Ospina wouldn’t have got to that had it sneaked inside the post.
Then Welbeck hits the post at the other end! I don’t know whether this would have counted. He was on the touchline when an attempted clearance hit him and rebounded off the outside of the post. Was Welbeck out of play when it hit him? I’m not sure but it doesn’t matter as it didn’t end in a goal.
2 min “Why is it that John Stones and Deulofeu never play anymore?” asks Dacre. “They are arguably two of Everton’s best players. Also why does Tim Howard not play anymore?” It’s that old devil called form again. (And possibly, in Howard’s case, that old devil called old age.)
1 min Everton, in blue, kick off from right to left. Arsenal are in their gold away kit due to the clash with their home shirt. Oh.
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Given the fragility of both sides, this might be the first football match in history would both sides would rather be 2-0 down than 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go. After you, Ty.
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A plug
Buy! Buy! Buy! (Or, rather: pre-order! Pre-order! Pre-order!). I don’t like to boast, but I can promise you that this book will be searingly competent.
Everton v Arsenal memories, part one in a series of one
A second email
This is a terrific point from Hubert O’Hearn, and weirdly the same observation that my colleague Gregg Bakowski made half an hour ago.
“I think Leicester and especially Ranieri have had a domino effect on the other clubs and especially their fans’ perception of Roberto Martinez, Arsene, LVG, etc,” writes Hubert. “Effectively it boils down to: ‘If Leicester, with a pauper’s budget and an extra from a music-hall sketch for a manager can be top of the table, What in hell’s the matter with YOU!?!” Neutrals love Leicester and Lovable Claudio; other managers? Perhaps not so much.”
All Arsenal’s league titles under Arsene Wenger involved staggering winning runs in the second half of the season. Ten victories in a row in 1997-98, 13 in a row in 2001-02 and nine in a row to break away from the pack in 2003-04. They might need to win their last nine this year if they are to become champions again.
Wenger’s teams have always had extreme and rapid fluctuations in confidence. If they win today and Leicester drop points, they will have renewed hope, not least because of a relatively easy run-in: Watford (H), West Ham (A), Crystal Palace (H), West Brom (H), Sunderland (A), Norwich (H), Manchester City (A) and Aston Villa (A).
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An email
“Surely Martinez’s position must be in question soon!” says Nick Parmenter. “With a spine stronger than most, I feel they should be top six minimum!”
I know what you mean. The problem is that, if you asked fans of every club where their team should finish, you would have six champions every season and nobody would be relegated.
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Gratuitous post of the day
It's Matchday! "I bloody love football" #DavidBrent pic.twitter.com/PpuLFNHSKd
— David Brent Movie (@DavidBrentMovie) March 19, 2016
Team news
Everton (4-2-3-1) Robles; Coleman, Jagielka, Funes Mori, Baines; McCarthy, Besic; Lennon, Barkley, Cleverley, Lukaku.
Subs: Stones, Kone, Niasse, Deulofeu, Osman, Howard, Galloway.
Arsenal (4-2-3-1) Ospina; Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Elneny; Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi; Welbeck. Subs: Gibbs, Mertesacker, Giroud, Walcott, Chambers, Campbell, Macey.
Referee Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear)
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Preamble
Good morning and welcome to live coverage of the 47th “must-win game” of Arsenal’s season, and the first actual must-win game. If they don’t take three points at Goodison Park today their title challenge will be over, and their appalling trophy drought under Arsene Wenger will be extended to one season.
The farcical hounding of Wenger by people who would struggle to walk a metre in his shoes without suffering a breakdown, never mind a mile a day for 20 years, has become increasingly unpleasant in recent weeks. It’s a consequence of our tediously demanding, entitled culture, and something that most concerned will eventually look back on with regret.
When he goes, many fans will be weeping for Wenger like Janice Soprano wept for Richie Aprile after she shot him dead before he’d even had chance to finish his supper, especially when Arsenal appoint Claude and Ty as joint-managers and are mathematically relegated by Christmas.
That does not mean Wenger should be exempt from criticism: it’s just that, what with this being the year 2016 and him being one of the greatest managers of all time, the criticism should have at least a vague whiff of civility, respect and perspective about it.
Wenger is scheduled to celebrate 20 years at Arsenal in September. Football is an unsentimental, sadistic beast that doesn’t care for happy endings. Ask Steven Gerrard, Brian Clough, Roy Keane and gazillions of others. If Arsenal lose today, it will end their title chances – and increase the possibility of them finishing outside the top four for the first time under Wenger.
(In the spirit of Kanye West, this preamble will be updated multiple times before, during and even after the game, when your correspondent will demonstrate a rare ability to predict the score, the scorers, the goal times and Per Mertesacker’s PAdj Defensive Stats. Yes, that really is a thing.)
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Rob will be here soon enough. In the meantime, read Andy Hunter’s piece with Romelu Lukaku, who has picture-perfect vision and admits Everton have been off colour for just too long.
Romelu Lukaku relives that barnstorming moment against Chelsea in photographic detail, providing a frame-by-frame account of the goal that illuminated last Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final and brought thebillionaire Farhad Moshiri the first return on his investment in Everton.
“When I got the ball from Ross [Barkley] I thought he’d get back into the box but I looked up and he was not there,” the Belgium international begins. Methodically, and in more time than it took to shrug aside César Azpilicueta, evade Branislav Ivanovic’s tackle, step inside Mikel John Obi, twist Gary Cahill one way then another and find Thibaut Courtois’s bottom corner, Lukaku then explains the thought process behind his 24th goal of a season that has seen him blossom as a centre-forward. It was not fuelled by anger, something Alan Shearer suggested in analysis that the striker needs more of. “If I’m angry then it’s difficult to play,” he responds. It was intelligence.
“I know what I’m doing,” the 22-year-old continues. “I can see an image clearly like on a camera. You can see I’m looking back to see where the other guys are but at the same time I see Azpilicueta behind me, Ivanovic just inside, Cahill here, Mikel here, so I thought: ‘Let me just try and see’, and then it’s about determination and skill. I always play with my head up because I take pictures and think how to get between them. When I am coming in on the goalkeeper, I always look twice at where he is and then focus on the ball.”
