After Newcastle were Verminated last time out at Le Grove, Arsene Wenger’s boys had a nine day rest to prepare for the trip to the blue half of Merseyside.
They were duly welcomed by an Everton side that had just had a tough FA Cup game against Sunderland.
Both Arsenal and Everton displayed their white t-shirts with inscriptions of tributes to the recuperating one-time Gooner, Fabrice Muamba, who suffered a cardiac arrest in Bolton’s FA Cup fixture away at White Hart Lane last Saturday.
After pleasantries were exchanged and team sheets were announced, the Gunners raced out of the blocks like lions let of their cages. The Toffees, who had lined up in a 4-5-1 formation, had set up to stop a seemingly dangerous Arsenal side from hurting them early on, with Tim Howard between the sticks as usual for the home side and Johnny Heitinga and Sylvain Distin providing central cover alongside the duo of Leighton Baines and Tony Hibbert to complete the Evertonian rearguard. It was in the centre of the pack that the decade long-serving gaffer (David Moyes) tried to make things difficult for Wenger’s charges by having Leon Osman line up with the lanky Belgian Marouane Fellaini, on-loan Steven Pienaar and energetic Royston Drenthe both playing wide, with Tim Cahill completing the central five looking to supply new signing Nikica Jelavic.
Le Boss on the other hand stuck with his ever improving rearguard of Wojciech Szczesny, Thomas Vermalean, Laurent Koscielny, Kieran Gibbs and Bacary Sagna. The midfield was made up of Alex Song, former Toffee Mikel Arteta, the resurgent and sure-footed Tomas Rosicky, as well as Aaron Ramsey and Theo Walcott. Of course Robin van Persie provided the attack. Wenger’s set-up looked to have no natural forward man operating down the flank, as Rambo was more disposed to operating through the middle.
The Gunners took off where they left nine days ago with a 200mph approach to the game which left Everton wondering what might become of their night out.
With Arsenal taking control of proceedings, the resurgent Rosicky drove to the edge of the box, sent in a superb delivery to Robin, whose deftly cushioned header was met by the on-rushing Ramsey who could only blast over the cross bar from eight-yards out.
Arsenal continued their dominance and Ramsey had another attempt blocked off after Theo picked him out from yet another corner kick. It looked like a tide too strong to withstand for the Toffees and they were soon to realize that the Gunners meant business. The resulting corner was sent in with pace and power from the Arsenal captain and his delivery was duly met by vice-captain TV5, who rose the highest among FOUR Everton players to break the deadlock on the night.
Arsenal’s ascendancy continued with Van Persie receiving the ball just inside the box, shook off his marker, thus creating space to shoot from inside the area with Howard responding with a parry onto the arriving Rambo who had his left footed shot blocked off by Hibbert for a corner kick.
