Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's trip to Arsenal
Everton captain James Tarkowski and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta
Everton captain James Tarkowski and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta
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We know what Arsenal are all about, we know what Mikel Arteta is all about as he’s an Evertonian and a former team-mate of mine. He’s getting a lot of scrutiny over how he’s going about winning football games through set-pieces and that could play into our hands a little bit because we’ve got big boys and can handle ourselves.
Can Jordan Pickford take a leaf out of Manchester United keeper Senne Lammens’ book at Hill Dickinson Stadium and start demanding more in the six-yard box? It’s like a Royal Rumble at Arsenal these days.
They’re accused of deploying the so-called ‘dark arts’ and a lot of people say that they’re not enjoying that side of the game, but I love it. You do everything you can to try and get an edge over the opposition.
It’s great to see nice football, but the tweaks that Arsenal have brought in with the set-pieces and long throw-ins are all about delivery and having the quality to put them in. You then need the hunger to get on the end of it and they’re showing that.
Maybe it’s not so easy on the eye, but it’s been effective. I’ve been in teams where you’ve had to do that and I’ve probably been picked ahead of people because I had a good delivery with a long throw.
You come across players and you think: “He’ll be a good manager when he’s older,” and Mikel was very intelligent with what he could bring to the game. He knew what he could bring to the team.
He came to Rangers after we beat his Paris Saint-Germain side in the Champions League. Ronaldinho was playing alongside him, but Mikel, who was on loan there, ran the show and we were able to snatch him away from Barcelona.
Rangers had Barry Ferguson who was a local legend, but Mikel started taking over a little bit. You could see the rivalry between him and Barry which helped the team.
Barry liked to dictate and start everything from the back, coming into that deep midfield hole, but then Mikel started asking, so there was another option for him. So, Barry started thinking that if Mikel has got the ability, I don’t have to do everything myself.
He could trust him, and Barry started creeping forward a lot more and arriving in the box and in Mikel’s first season (2002/03), he scored the most goals of his career (18). Mikel was small and slight, but he could use his brain to work out where players were going to try and pass the ball.
It’s the Spanish way. I remember as an England youngster we played Spain once and got beat 2-0, even though we were a strong team and their players were half the size of us.
Afterwards, the player didn’t really say much to us, he just told us that he’d never taught us to do what they did and could only praise them. They couldn’t physically match us, but they would wait for us to control the ball and take it off our first touch.
It was a very clever way of doing it and the first time we’d come across such methods. If you look at what Spain did for the next 15 years or so, with Xavi and Andres Iniesta, you could understand the calibre of players we were up against.
I remember seeing him when he came to Everton, putting in a few tackles and showing some aggression. I thought he’s learned that since I last saw him because I didn’t see that from him in Scotland.
He knows what he needs to do to succeed. Therefore, it doesn’t really surprise me that Mikel got the opportunity to go to Manchester City and pick the brains of Pep Guardiola as he’s very single minded and he knows what he wants to do.
Whether you like it or not, it’s part of the game. In the past, people have moaned that while Arsenal played nice football, they were too soft.
Now, they’re combining that style with having a fight with teams. It used to be ‘could you do it at Stoke on a Tuesday?’ and now that’s what Arsenal are like.
I liked doing set-pieces in training because I was involved in it a lot. I’d be part of the free-kicks, the throw-ins, and the defending.
I enjoyed that but some of my team-mates didn’t. It’s probably because they were the players that weren’t involved and they were left standing around for half an hour or more.
If you can find a ploy that works a lot and can give you an edge, then why not do it on matchdays? People say it’s going back to the 90s a little bit – good!
We might see two up front again soon...
You’ve got to be creative though. Against Manchester United, it was a case of rinse and repeat from Everton, doing the same thing.
They were on the ball, so we had to come up with something different, and we did that in the next game with Jarrad Branthwaite’s near post headed goal at Newcastle. Arsenal are the best in the country, and the best on set-pieces, so it’s a tough test.
We’re going to need a strong referee. I want our captain James Tarkowski to be all over the referee, reminding him that there are two teams on the football pitch and not everything can go their way.
Mikel has proven that he’s not a soft touch. His team are trying every trick in the book... they’re making the game stop until they’re reset and the keeper is going down.
The pressure is on Arsenal. They need the win and if they don’t get it, the whole country is waiting to see if they bottle it.
We can go out and express ourselves and put ourselves in a big fight against probably the best team in Europe right now. As a player, if you’re not hitting those heights yourself, you want to at least pit your wits against them.