Thursday, March 2, 2023

ARS 4 - 0 EVE: Merseyside Burnley No Match for a Real Football Team

 Remember when Sean Dyche had Burnley overperforming so much he was dubbed "the ginger Mourinho"?  He's rehired some of his old players and turned Everton into a more expensive version of Burnley.  He's now 2-0-3 since replacing the clueless Frank Lampard, which may be good enough, if continued, to save the Toffees from relegation.  They beat us in his first game with them.  But they looked woeful yesterday.  The few times they did have scoring opportunities, and they had two or three good ones, they seemed too surprised to make the most of them.  Their focus was on keeping the Gunners from getting good opportunities, time wasting, and making the game disjointed, and it worked for 40 minutes.  With Saka's brilliant goal, that strategy went out the window, and after the error that preceded our second goal in first half injury time, there was no way back for Everton.  The second half was dominated by Arsenal, though Ramsdale was forced into a couple of smart saves.  Arteta had the opportunity to ease ESR into some late game minutes, and let Fabio Vieira show his stuff too.  Eddie reprised his role as substitute for Trossard's false nine and looked good out there, bagging an assist for Martinelli's second goal.  The commentators noted that Arsenal had beaten Everton 100 times with this game, the first time any team had beaten any other team that many times in the history of English football.  

Arteta will not be letting his guys get ahead of themselves.  They're only five points up on Man City and eight on Man U, and another run of poor games like we recently experienced will see those leads evaporate.  We have to play City again, and they've beaten us twice.  In our favor is that United and City have to play each other, and we all have to play difficult-to-score-on Newcastle.  I like our chances, but we're not prohibitive favorites (unless City gets a points deduction for their financial transgressions).  Arteta seems to have come up with new questions to ask of opposition defenses after they'd answered the ones we posed in the stellar first half of the season.

Congratulations to Erik ten Hag and his revitalized Manchester United, winners of the League (Carabao) Cup.  It's been an age since United won silverware in the minds of their supporters, and they'll be hoping this augurs well for their future.  They are still in the hunt for winning the FA Cup, Europa League, and the EPL, so they're entitled to dream big.

Arsenal Women have fallen apart.  They lost their two best players to season-ending knee injuries and their promising season is in ruins.  There's one realistic chance to salvage it, in the Conti Cup final against Chelsea.  I suppose I shouldn't rule out a Champions' League miracle.

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