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MOTD- Everton 3-0 Arsenal

By on April 6, 2014

It’s come that time of season where everything falls apart for Arsenal. With just two wins in their last right matches, Arsene Wenger’s side are not even solidly sitting in a Champions League position, and have cast an all too familiar feeling upon their fans. Despite sitting atop the Premier League longer than any other club this season, it looks like Arsenal are in for another disappointing finish to the league season, unless they can turn things around quickly.

Wenger highlighted their side’s “lack of charisma”, as the reason why Arsenal lost, but that was somewhat of an understatement following a match in which Everton completely outplayed The Gunners from start to finish.  Just nintey seconds into the crucial Premier League fixture Everton were nearly up, as Leon Osman sliced a dipping volley inches wide of the frame.  Fittingly, the home side went up shortly afterwards.  Leighton Baines whipped a low cross into the box from the left to the feet of Romelu Lukaku, who volleyed a blazing daisycutter towards the bottom corner from fifteen yards out that Wojciech Szczesny kick away.  However, the ball rebounded back out to Steven Naismith slightly right of the penalty spot, where the winger coolly slotted the ball into the bottom right corner of the net.

It was almost all Everton, with Arsenal looking nervous and quite frankly shambles in possession of the ball.  Kevin Mirallas was next to come close to doubling The Toffes’ lead, only for Szczesny to scramble to his right to block the Belgian’s low effort from the left of the box at the bottom corner in the thirty-first minute.  While the midfielder might have missed out on a goal on the night due to Szczesny’s save, only three minutes later Mirallas had the next best things in an assist.  He spread it out wide right to Lukaku, who romped down the wing before cutting into the middle, ghosting by three Arsenal defenders, and cutting a driven shot from fifteen yards out around Szczesny into the far corner of the net.  The forward stomped over to give his boss Roberto Martinez quite the bear hug, but even that failed to muster some fire out of Arsenal.

Lukas Podolski forced Tim Howard into his first big save of the match forty minutes in to tip the German’s snapshot volley over the crossbar, but Wenger’s side were still giving Baines and Mirallas far to much freedom down the wings, so it was no real surprise when Everton’s third goal came from the same source.  Mirallas burst down the left on the counter-attack prior to slipping the ball through to the diagonal run of Naismith.  Szczesny got to the ball first, but only succeed in clawing at the ball, which fell back out into the penalty area.  Mirallas came in to bundle the ball home, yet the final touch came of Mikel Arteta, taking a most deserved goal away from the man of the match.  Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain then proceeded to smack the crossbar with a fierce twenty-five yard screamer late on, yet it was the one bright spot in a glaringly disappointing result, and performance, by an Arsenal side fighting to keep their heads above Everton in the title race.
Man of the Match: Kevin Mirallas

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.