Improved performance needed for Everton away

Morning all.

It’s another late Saturday kick-off as we travel to Everton looking for a repeat of last week’s victory over Wolves, but hopefully achieved with an improved performance. We’ll have to be better to take all three points, no question, and our last three away games have brought only 2 points, so there’s room for improvement there too.

In terms of the team for later on, Mikel Arteta confirmed the absence of Ben White who will miss some games, but perhaps not as many as first feared. With Riccardo Calafiori back from suspension I expect him to start at left-back, with Piero Hincapie alongside William Saliba, and Jurrien Timber at right-back.

In midfield, I can’t see anything beyond Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi and Martin Odegaard, with Leandro Trossard and Bukayo Saka on the wings. Up front it’s probably just a bit soon for Gabriel Jesus to start, so it’s likely to be another opportunity for Viktor Gyokeres who got the manager’s backing yesterday:

The first few weeks were difficult because physically he wasn’t in his best state and he’s a player that needs that, like any other player in this league, almost to perform at that level. Then he kicked on.

I think he had a really good period and he got injured, and now he’s back. But I saw a lot of positive things in the last two games that he’s done. We need to continue to tweak and understand him a little bit better in certain situations and he needs to do the same. But that’s about time and we have full support for him.

Arsenal need a win, obviously, but Gyokeres really needs a goal (or two) to just rebuild a bit of confidence – something I think everyone would admit is an important component for any striker to perform at their best. It’s over 6 weeks since his last goal, and although the injury absence played a part in that, this is a scenario he hasn’t had to face for a long time. At Sporting he was scoring with incredible frequency, so perhaps the psychological aspect of it all is playing a part too. Fingers crossed for him.

If it doesn’t happen, Jesus is waiting to make his mark from the bench, and the manager spoke in quite positive terms about Kai Havertz returning soon, so there’s going to be real competition for the summer signing to deal with. Scoring today would take some of the spotlight off him, whereas another game without a goal and those conversations will continue until such time as he does find the back of the net.

As for Everton, they’re missing some important players today. Idrissa Gana Gueye and the exciting Iliman Ndiaye are away at AFCON, while Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who has been in good form lately, misses out with a hamstring strain. Jack Grealish is fit and can always cause danger, but offensively they’re not as strong as they could be. Still, we know how tough it can be to play against a David Moyes side, and as a club they’ve been doing what Arteta does at Arsenal by rallying supporters to create a big atmosphere at their new stadium.

Saturday night, coming up to Christmas, a big game against top quality opposition, and a few mulled wines over the course of the day might well make this a pretty noisy one. And that’s something we’re going to have to contend with. A good start would be very useful to quiet things down, but having conceded the first goal in our last three away games, making sure we don’t give them anything to celebrate could be important too.

With Man City playing first, and likely to go top because there’s no way West Ham will get anything from that game, there’s a little extra pressure applied there too. But this is what you have to deal with in any title race, and hopefully after some home truths were spoken following the Wolves game, we get a fully-focused Arsenal side who can go out tonight and do the business.

Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We have a preview podcast over on Patreon if you need something to listen to, and as ever we’ll have live blog coverage and all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News later.

Come on you reds!