Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Everton following their 2-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium
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For me, Arsenal’s breakthrough goal against Everton came from Thierno Barry’s attitude.
We know what Beto is good at and what he isn’t and I thought he could have spun in behind a lot more, there was a load of space in there, but he battled away and got a shot on target only for the keeper to make a great save.
At least he had a go. He puts his heart and soul into a performance, whether he’s got the ability or not.
Barry’s body language is very lethargic, so it looks a lot worse at times. If he looks back on his videos, he might be thinking: “Can’t I just sprint a little bit more?”
He was on the pitch for a decent amount of time, but it took him a while to get into the game. Arsenal were making mistakes at the back and the goalkeeper was looking quite flustered yet Barry ambled to close him down.
If he’d been a bit more proactive, trying to guess what the defender was trying to do, that could have been a huge opportunity for Everton to go 1-0 up with just a few minutes to go. It looked to me like he was just running for running’s sake and not trying to affect what the keeper and the Arsenal was trying to do.
That’s where the goal came from. They found the full-back who played a long ball out and while Vitalii Mykolenko did well to close down Max Dowman, Arsenal got a throw-in and he switched off and left Iliman Ndiaye two-versus-one.
When you give any player in the Premier League that amount of time to put a ball in and dictate where they want to go, you’re giving them a huge opportunity to hurt you. It felt like a lack of hunger from Barry to prove to David Moyes that he didn’t want to be dropped again.
Rather than that, it seemed like he was feeling sorry for himself. Arsenal knew there was no threat going forward and the goal happened.
Being up front on your own against the Arsenal defence is a difficult task, but if you’re closing them down, do it properly. That was the first thing on my mind, if he’d just anticipated the ball a bit more and sprinted then they were in trouble.
They’d lost their momentum, but we weren’t there to force the error and let them off the hook.
While I thought the players did fantastically, were communicating well with good passages of play and composure on the ball, especially with James Garner at right-back, trying to get a bit of rhythm and a breather, when you’re under the cosh at times, you need to make the right decisions and unfortunately we didn’t.
We were all wondering what the team was going to be and whether David Moyes would name an unchanged side again, so it was surprising to see neither of our first-choice centre-back pair of Jarrad Branthwaite or James Tarkowski. Although we’d done well at Hill Dickinson Stadium against Arsenal and had been unlucky not to get something out of that game, we knew it was going to be a tough night against the Premier League leaders, and it was likely to be backs against the wall stuff and another long 90 minutes at the Emirates Stadium.
However, from quite early on I thought we went toe-to-toe with them. I think, given the time he’d had to prepare, David Moyes was happy with how he would deploy his game plan and we bided our time, kept it tight and frustrated Arsenal, getting their crowd very nervy.
We had our moments, like we’ve had in many away games. I thought it was actually one of Everton’s best matches on our travels this season in terms of how we performed against top opposition, but unfortunately, as David Moyes said after the game, it didn’t seem to be our day.
There was a fantastic block off the line, the Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya made a great save and it could have gone anywhere with Beto ready to tap it in. Dwight McNeil has also hit the post and normally when he has a shot from that kind of range, he hits the back of the net.
We had them where we wanted them really and caused them problems on the counter-attack. Much has been made of Arsenal’s set-pieces, but I thought we defended them really, really well.
Like Jose Mourinho used to say, you just hope you can stick with it. As the games goes on, tiredness and a lack of concentration can creep in and unfortunately that’s what happened to Everton right at the end.
For me, there were a couple of mistakes in the build-up that enabled Arsenal to get the goal and break the deadlock. Unfortunately, the second goal killed it.
Youngsters like Dowman possess a special factor to hurt opponents
People can talk about goalkeepers coming up, I don’t mind it to be fair. It’s sort of exciting in a weird way, you’ve got to throw everything at it and trying to get something out of the game.
Those staying back have got to do their job. It was a poor corner, the goalkeeper comes up and we’ve hit the front man and you’re asking for trouble.
Mykolenko showed what happens when you’re fatigued, your brain makes slow decisions and he didn’t know whether to come or go, and the next minute he’s been made a fool of by a youngster, Dowman, who has come on and stole the show. That was the difference as Arsenal were able to bring him on and it lifted the crowd.
We love to see young players coming through, especially when they’re home-grown talents. Fans appreciate what they bring because they’ve got no fear, but the special factor that really hurts the opposition is being an unknown quantity. Mykolenko has got a great history against Bukayo Saka, he knows what Saka can do and he can concentrate on that.
We know that Saka can be dangerous at any moment but once again, I thought we kept him pretty muted for most of the game. I think when Dowman came on, Mykolenko could have been tighter on occasions and be a bit ‘welcome to the Premier League, it’s not going to be so easy for you.’
Instead, it seemed like that fear of the unknown like I said. Dowman was playing on the right side, but he’s got a great left foot.
That’s difficult as a full-back when you’re in those situations. Dowman already had an effort that had gone over the bar that should have been a warning sign.
Then he showed his quality by putting that ball in, which is Kryptonite for every goalkeeper, but even more so for Jordan Pickford. He’s been caught out before with similar crosses this season.
It’s difficult, he got a slight touch on it and when you win leagues you’ve got to have that little bit of good fortune. Jordan’s touch hit an Arsenal player and set up that goal for them.
Everton have still got to be pleased with how they acquitted themselves, especially without a couple of their keep players at the back. Hopefully they can still come away with some confidence and credit from the game.
In terms of his changes, David Moyes is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Arsenal’s substitutions won the game and ours didn’t.
Could we have brought someone on ourselves to give them a worry? We could have tried to hurt them on the counter-attack with a bit of quality and speed to get at them.