Trossard's stunner breaks the Goodison Park curse as Arsenal see off Everton
Everton 0-1 Arsenal (Trossard 69th minute)
Leandro Trossard’s well-executed winning goal was the difference as Arsenal return from Goodison Park with all three points for the first time in nearly six years.
The last time they had won north of Stanley Park, the green area separating Goodison with bitter city rivals Liverpool’s Anfield, was in October 2017.
That’s a long time in footballing terms and a lot of water has flown under the bridges since, with Mikel Arteta overhauling the whole club. On target that day were Monreal, Ozil, Lacazette, Ramsey and Sanchez. Do you get the picture? It feels like ancient history.
Given their atrocious record here in recent seasons, having lost four times on their last five visits, in most other fixtures we’d have talked about a free hit. But this is The Arsenal, a side that shelled out north of £200million to win the Premier League for the first time in 20 years.
Arteta and the players knew that if they want to mount a credible title challenge and push Man City hard, they had no option but to beat the struggling Toffees who have only one point on board from five games and are in for another tough season.
In typical Sean Dyche style, Everton were well-organised but like so often their defensive solidity affected their attacking ambitions. Both Beto and Dominic Calvert-Lewin had little to chew on as the rest of the Everton squad looked passive.
And up until Fabio Vieira squandered a good chance on 10 minutes, the build-up to the game had only been dominated by the shocking news of David Raya replacing Aaron Ramsdale. But today Arsenal could have placed a chair between the sticks and it would not have mattered. They would still have recorded a clean sheet such was Everton's lack of cutting edge.
Minutes after the Portuguese's miss, luck was out for Gabriel Martinelli who first had a goal disallowed for offside, then came off through injury.
Trossard, who went on to make a match-winning contribution, replaced him as Arsenal continued to camp in Everton’s half. Yet a lack of imagination on the ball meant that nothing separated them with Everton after 45 minutes.
In the second half the Gunners attacked with much more purpose, vigour and belief, throwing the kitchen sink at Everton, who had suddenly dropped very deep out of fear of leaving spaces in behind to exploit for Arsenal's fast forwards.
And either side of Martin Odegaard being denied by Jordan Pickford, Trossard finished neatly with the inside of his left foot in off the post from an excellent Bukayo Saka cutback.
The Goodison Park curse has finally been broken.
Line-ups
Everton
1 Pickford- 6 Tarkowski- 7 McNeil- 8 Onana- 10 Danjuma- 14 Beto- 16 Doucoure- 18 Young- 19 Mykolenko- 27 Gueye- 32 Branthaite
Arsenal
22 Raya- 2 Saliba- 4 White- 6 Gabriel Magalhaes- 7 Saka- 8 Odegaard- 11 Martinelli- 14 Nketiah- 21 Vieira- 35 Oleksandr Zinchenko- 41 Rice
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