Everton will be looking to improve on their record against Arsenal away as it is historically their toughest Premier League fixture
Steven Pienaar celebrates putting Everton ahead against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on January 9, 2010 but the home side scored a stoppage time equaliser
Steven Pienaar celebrates putting Everton ahead against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on January 9, 2010 but the home side scored a stoppage time equaliser(Image: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
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After suffering their first defeat of the season against Chelsea last time out, things don’t get any easier for Everton as they go away to Premier League champions Arsenal on Saturday.
On paper, such a match-up is the de facto toughest fixture of the current campaign but historically it’s also been proven to be the Blues’ most difficult assignment of any given season.
This has been an issue that has even predated manager David Moyes and continued through his time away from the club. Other than when they recorded a 1-0 win behind closed doors on St George’s Day, 2021, thanks to a Bernd Leno own goal in the 76th minute, Everton have never triumphed at the Emirates Stadium with the closest other occasion being in the snow on January 9, 2010, when Steven Pienaar put the visitors ahead with his delicate chip as Landon Donovan made his Blues debut but Moyes’ men were denied by Tomas Rosicky’s 92nd minute equaliser.
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You have to go back over 30 years to January 20, 1996, for the last time Evertonians were able to witness their side taste victory at Arsenal as Ian Wright’s 37th minute opener – his 13th goal against them – was cancelled out by Graham Stuart’s 49th minute equaliser before Andrei Kanchelskis struck an 84th minute winner.
The winger latched on to a Barry Horne throw-in, cut inside from his right-wing position and fired a left-foot shot beyond the grasp of ‘safe hands’ David Seaman, who would star for England on home turf in the European Championships later that year.
It was the sixth of 16 goals he’d net his what was his only full season with the Blues who went on to secure a sixth place finish for their solitary top half placing in the first decade of the Premier League, missing out on European football to Arsenal on the final day of the campaign.
Following the defeat, Gunners boss Bruce Rioch – who played for Everton himself in the 1970s – admitted he’d try to sign Kanchelskis himself the previous summer when he’d got wind that he was preparing to quit Manchester United but he was unable to hijack the club record £5million transfer to Goodison Park – which football finance expert Kieran Maguire calculated earlier this year would now be the equivalent of a £104million fee in the current market.
With a language barrier preventing Rioch from trying to sell Arsenal to the Russian international himself, his attempts to lure Kanchelskis to the capital fell flat. After splashing out £12million on Dennis Bergkamp and David Platt in the first month of his reign, Rioch told Highbury directors that he fancied the pacy wide man too but by the time they made their move, their target was already on his way to Merseyside.
The Arsenal manager lamented: “I didn’t talk to Andrei because he doesn’t speak English. But I did talk to his wife and his interpreter about a move here.”
Since then though, other than the aforementioned success that spectators were unable to witness during the global coronavirus pandemic – conditions that also produced Everton’s only win at Anfield since 1999 – trips to the Gunners have proven a trail of tears. Moyes has been in charge of 13 previous trips to Arsenal as Blues boss – including the infamous 7-0 drubbing in 2005 after his team had clinched a Champions League qualification spot after finishing fourth – but has never beaten them.
Everton's points per game record away against current Premier League teams
Everton's points per game record away against current Premier League teams
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Everton’s overall Premier League record at Arsenal includes a record 26 defeats from 34 matches and with six draws and just two wins in that time, their points per game average is just 0.35, their lowest on the road against any opponent in the competition. Perhaps predictably, the five other ever-present clubs in the Premier League feature in the Blues’ worst six away head-to-heads in the division.
They average 0.47 points per game at Chelsea, 0.5 at Manchester United; 0.6 at Tottenham Hotspur and 0.62 at Liverpool with the only other team breaking into that sequence being Bournemouth which is also 0.6.
In contrast, against their current 19 Premier League rivals, Everton average at least one point per game away at 10 of them. Their best record is at Nottingham Forest, where they average 2.11, followed by Crystal Palace on 1.82.