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Prepare yourselves for a stinky game against long-ball deep block merchants Everton

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo A home match day again see’s us up against 15th-placed Everton and an opportunity to at least keep pace with runaway leaders Liverpool, who will absolutely beat Fulham today on their own turf, if last weekend’s game is anything to go by. Let’s face it, we did everything to win that game and it was only a bit of profligacy in front of goal that meant we didn’t have all three points; Fulham’s goal can’t lead that much of a charmed life two weeks running I don’t think.

Chelsea should also beat a Brentford side not great on their travels, but pretty decent at home and given it’s at Stamford Bridge, they will most likely also occupy second spot come 6pm tonight.

Which means we have to beat Everton. I already think our chances of winning the league are bleak, as I’ve said before, but anything other than 100% success rate for the rest of 2024 means that we will be well and truly out of it.

Arteta faced the press yesterday and he gave us a bit of an update on the status of his squad, in which it seems Gabriel could be the closest one to coming back, which is good news. Having him back to partner Saliba will be big for us, but it also might mean we can do a little bit of shuffling in the full back positions. For example, I’d either put Kiwior in at left back or give Myles Lewis-Skelly another shot after his impressive showing against Monaco. The question will be on whether he can handle the physicality of two top flight games in four days. From a fatigue point of view the question will be whether his lack of experience means that he’ll be challenged potentially and with Palace in the Cup coming up in midweek where I’d expect the expectation is for him to play then, perhaps Arteta gives Kiwior the nod today. He’ll be up against Illman Ndiaye, who whilst I don’t know too much about him, apparently he’s a guy who likes to carry the ball and loves a dribble. He’ll be a tricky winger to go up against. But it feels like if MLS is fit enough, he’ll have the pace to handle it perhaps more than Kiwior, so I think Arteta will certainly be thinking about him as an option today.

Either of those two will enable us to shift Timber over to the right, which feels like it’ll have a bit more balance to it, which I think is what we need. Dwight McNeill is the more established Premier League face on that side and you’d hope Timber has the better of him today if that is the match up. In midfield I think Arteta will persist with Rice in at six and I think it’s the right call; I listened to Charles Watts on his YouTube/Podcast channel yesterday say that he thinks Partey/Timber will share minutes given they are our only right back options with White and Tomiyasu out, which I think makes a lot of sense, so if they are going to job share I’d have Timber in today and then maybe Partey next weekend against Palace. Or hopefully Calafiori can be back by then and it becomes Timber playing more regularly if he has a week off in midweek. Odegaard will assume his normal position, so then the question is on who plays midfield and given Everton are a physical side, I’d be going for Merino.

In the front three it has to be Saka and Havertz, who was rested in midweek, so then we’re talking who is best positioned for the wide left role. I think given how Everton play, which will be to sit in, be compact, try to deny space and launch long balls, it’s a day for the trickery of Trossard rather than the in behind running of Martinelli. We all know what Dyche wants to do; he wants his team to give no quarter in their back line, to sit in their own penalty box and tell us “go on then, break us down”. The numbers bear that out; Everton have the fewest number of touches of the ball in the league, they have the lowest number of touches in their defence, they have played the highest number of long balls and they launch from Jordan Pickford basically every time they get it. Which is why you want Saliba and Gabriel both playing today, because Calvert-Lewin is there to contest aerial dual after aerial dual.

This is the archetypal “don’t let them go one up” game. If Everton go ahead it’s going to be a bloody difficult afternoon as they want to frustrate and make it as scabby as humanly possible. Remember the last game of the season? We battered them from start to finish, Idrissa Gueye scored with pretty much their only attack on 40 minutes and they were set for a frustrating second half. Thankfully Tomiyasu’s equaliser came just a couple of minutes later, but even then it was a second half of Everton taking all the time in the world, gamesmanship, frustration and ‘ahhs’ from the crowd, as we frantically fought for that winner that we eventually got in the 89th minute through Havertz. If Everton go ahead again today, expect more of the same. If we can not start slowly like we’ve been doing at times this season and get ourselves ahead early, the narrative of the game is completely different. This is the sort of game that either is incredibly frustrating throughout, or has Arsenal scoring early and making it (hopefully) a comfortable afternoon. Knowing Dyche, we’re in for the former rather than the latter, unfortunately.

So we as home fans need to be ready for a stinky game. It’s easy enough to say now, but patience may be the virtue we need this afternoon, because it’s all set up for the Toffees to be party-poopers in North London.

There’s not really a lot else you can say about Everton; we know exactly who they are, what they are, what the style is and how we are going to have to play. It might feel a lot like the Fulham game, so let’s just hope there’s a few players with their shooting boots on today.

I’ll be in the ground assuming my normal praying position in Block Five, so let’s hope for a good performance and all three points.

Back tomorrow morning early on the Same Old Arsenal podcast with Amanda if you fancy joining us.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.