Everton play Arsenal at their own game

With manager Mikel Arteta’s infamous notepad, accusations from Manchester City’s John Stones and Arsenal fans even embracing their team’s use of such cynical tactics with their ‘Dark arts again, ole, ole,’ banner, there was delicious irony for travelling Evertonians to see those same Gooners crying over the Blues supposedly giving them a taste of their own medicine. There’s plenty who can dish it out but can’t take it, and on this evidence, it seems you can add significant sections among the regular patrons of the Emirates Stadium to that list.

Arsenal have embraced their tag of being one of the Premier League’s baddest bully boys when it comes to gamesmanship so to see them whinging here was like Slytherin complaining of plummeting morales at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter stories. From the old days when the likes of Tony Adams and Steve Bould would regularly given you are pummelling while simultaneously appealing for an opposition offside flag en masse with the rest of their back four to the era when Patrick Vieira and company would regularly see red under Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal silk has long been supplemented by a tough old gut of steel rather than a soft underbelly.

Here though, there were whistles and jeers, each time Jordan Pickford would hold onto the ball for more than a couple of seconds. Everton’s goalkeeper would eventually pick up a yellow card for smashing the ball upfield after an Arsenal attack broke down with a flag going up for offside while substitute Armando Broja followed him into the book under similar circumstances, but it was a small price to pay for the visitors whose gameplan worked to perfection.

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Taking the Myk

Going toe-to-toe with Arsenal’s star player and three-time player-of-the-month this season alone, Bukayo Saka, Vitalii Mykolenko was always going to be up against it at the Emirates Stadium but after a difficult campaign so far, the Ukrainian international came through this most difficult of assignments with flying colours. Jet-heeled Saka is one of the most-dangerous wide men in the game and absolutely adored in these parts – when a series of young fans were asked who their favourite player is before they took half-time penalties against the club’s mascot Gunnersaurus, they unanimously chose him – but it seems the bigger the challenge, the more that Mykolenko rises to the occasion.

Since his January transfer from Dynamo Kyiv, almost three years ago – just weeks before the Russian military invasion of his homeland in which his own father has been fighting for freedom – Mykolenko has had a real roller-coast ride. Despite his spectacular goal in the 2-1 away win at Leicester City in his debut season, it was damning that Frank Lampard struggled to get the best out of the player, even though he had the Premier League’s greatest ever left-back Ashley Cole as his first team coach.

Mykolenko was arguably Everton’s most-improved player in 2023/24 with his campaign climaxing with a canny marshalling of Mohamed Salah at Goodison Park – after a similar job at Anfield before going off – only for him to be forced out of the action with injury. Since then, he’s struggled to get back to his best and was given the runaround in the Blues’ recent away defeats at Southampton and Manchester United.

There was none of that here though, and along with keeping Saka under wraps, he also made a clearance off the line and a perfectly-timed tackle to deny Thomas Partey in a frantic finish and while the latter went to a VAR review for a potential penalty, Paul Tierney over at Stockley Park, quite rightly decided it was firm but perfectly fair. Hopefully Sean Dyche’s faith in the player will now be further rewarded.

Balancing act

For most of the early part of this season, there has been an ongoing debate over whether Dwight McNeil or Iliman Ndiaye should be Everton’s ‘number 10’ but perhaps the correct answer to this nagging question is that it should be neither of them. Going into this game, much of the pre-match talk surrounded Arsenal’s set-piece prowess given that Arteta’s side had scored more goals from such situations than any Premier League side.

However, the Blues had suffered a blow going to the Emirates Stadium, given that McNeil who was back to his best from dead ball situations in the 4-0 thrashing of Wolverhampton Wanderers, was forced to miss out after his old knee injury flared up again. So, just as was the case in the demolition of Gary O’Neil’s side, Abdoulaye Doucoure was pushed up to the role that he inhabited for most of Dyche’s early time at the club.

With Doucoure about to turn 32 on New Year’s Day and a couple of niggly hamstring injuries to either leg last season, there were doubts whether the former Watford man could still be effective in his ‘dual’ role of supporting his striker when Everton have the ball and dropping back to be a third man in the middle when they don’t but it appears that he might still have the legs after all.

The Blues went into this term trying to be a bit more expansive but having lost their first four on the bounce, they’ve been playing catch-up ever since and Doucoure operating as what this correspondent’s colleague Joe Thomas described as ‘an advanced number six’ could actually be the answer. The team has looked much more balanced over these last couple of games and going back to basics in this respect, has brought four points out of six, even if going forward that ensures either Ndiaye or McNeil needs to play on the right wing.