Arteta's Arsenal must put frustrations from Everton draw aside for Real Madrid challenge
FRUSTRATIONS ASIDE: Saturday's frustrating draw with Everton means that of their last 27 visits to either Goodison Park or Anfield they have returned to north London as winners on only three occasions.
There seems to be something about the Merseyside air that doesn't quite agree with Arsenal.
Saturday's frustrating draw with Everton means that of their last 27 visits to either Goodison Park or Anfield they have returned to north London as winners on only three occasions.
And on their next visit to the city in early May they will almost certainly be applauding Premier League champions-elect Liverpool onto the pitch.
The Gunners have not enjoyed the ideal preparation for what has now become the biggest game of their season - Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final first leg with Real Madrid at the Emirates.
Losing key defender Gabriel in the midweek win over Fulham was bad enough but dropping two more points to David Moyes' resilient team effectively ended their title hopes while doing little for their morale before the clash with the Spanish giants.
They have only lost three League games this season but manager Mikel Arteta knows they have drawn far to many - 11. And this latest one was the seventh when they have taken the lead but then been pegged back.
What made it worse for Arteta was that his former club Everton were there for the taking after Leandro Trossard produced the one piece of real quality in a scrappy first half to put the Gunners ahead.
At that point Arteta's decision to keep some of his big guns - Bukaya Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli and Thomas Partey - on the bench to keep them fresh for the battle with Real looked justified.
But as so often has been the case this season, Arteta was left fuming by a controversial referee's decision. The Gunners' campaign has been undermined by some questionable red cards but this time it was a penalty award that upset the Spaniard.
"I have seen it 15 times and in my opinion it is never a penalty," was his reaction to Darren England's decision - supported by a VAR review - to award a spot kick against Myles Lewis-Skelly for bundling Jack Harrison to the ground even though the initial contact was outside of the box.
For all his precocious talent, Lewis-Skelly showed his inexperience in letting Harrison get ahead of him but to most neutral observers it certainly looked a 'soft' one. In all the furore Iliman Ndiaye kept his nerve to send David Raya the wrong way to level the scores and that's the way it stayed.
Arteta had already thrown on Saka and Martinelli at half-time and later introduced Odegaard to the fray in a bid to regain the lead but Jordan Pickford denied them with fine saves from Declan Rice, Saka, Martinelli while Odegaard and Mikel Merino missed good chances.
"I am 100% frustrated," said Arteta. "We were very much in control of the match. We were hoping in the second half to continue the domination but out of nothing the referee decides to give a penalty. We wanted to generate some momentum but we never got that because the dynamic of the game became different after the penalty.
“Everton are very good at what they do. They are a team that is very physical and direct. We gave away so many silly fouls which led to set-pieces. But they generated nothing at all.”
Understandably, Arteta will not publicly admit the title race is over but admitted "we have no margins for error - that is clear."
He knows Arsenal's trophy hopes now rest on the Champions League and there could not be a bigger hurdle than holders Real, who have had an uncanny knack of ending the hopes of Premier League teams in recent years - just ask Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea..
Arteta will approach the clash with Mbappe, Vincious Jr and Rodrigo et al in a positive frame of mind though. "It's beautiful game in the best club competition in the world against a team that has dominated the competition," he said. "We're looking forward to the challenge."
Everton were effectively safe from the drop even before the international break but now they are 15 points clear of the bottom three, Moyes will finally allow himself to visit their new stadium at Bramley Moor dock. Previously he had insisted he wouldn't go until their survival was assured.
The Toffees have picked up 18 points from the 12 games since he returned for his second spell and Moyes said: "We've done a pretty good job. We are just about there, not mathematically, but just about clear that we'll be a Premier League team next season. I am planning to take a visit the stadium this week which would indicate how I am feeling - that we are really close."
After their relegation scraps in recent years, it's something of a luxury for Everton and their long-suffering followers to go into the final weeks of the season without anxiously looking over their shoulders.
But having shown their fighting qualities against the top two, Liverpool and Arsenal, in the last week, Moyes now wants his players to show more quality and actually beat a top six side with games against Champions League contenders Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Chelsea still to come this month.
“I've said to the players that moving forward the challenge we've got is to find how to play better against better sides," he added. "We've got great resilience and character and have shown we are always hard to beat but we lack quality in certain areas."
: Pickford 8; O'Brien 7, Tarkowski 7, Branthwaite 7; Patterson 5 (Young 75, 5), Gueye 6, Iroegbunam 5 (Garner 65, 5), Doucoure 7, Harrison 6 (McNeil 86, 5); Ndiaye 8 (Alcaraz 75, 5), Beto 5 (Broja 65, 5) Unused subs: Virginia, Keane, Chermiti, Coleman.
: Raya 6; White 7 (Timber 61, 6) Saliba 7, Kiwior 7, Lewis-Skelly 6 (Tierney 76, 7); Rice 7, Jorginho 6 (Odegaard 71, 6); Sterling 6 (Martinelli 46, 6), Trossard 8, Nwanieri 6 (Sake 46, 6); Merino 6.
: Darren England 7.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
