Everton are a better team under Roberto Martinez…yeah, it’s downright obvious.
Now on to the less obvious, Everton’s about the best team we’ve faced, and I’m not ashamed to say it was a fair result. They met us on the same footing on every front.
In the first half Lukaku and the Mirallas nearly scored on different occasions and they made sure we saw very little of the ball in that half. We had our chances later in the first half with Giroud twice having a chance to bury the ball.
This makes me even more anxious about our strike force.
A goal poacher would have buried the chances Giroud missed in the first half, Suarez even Judas. Make no mistake, Giroud IS a good striker but his misses sometimes cost us, and if returnees Theo Walcott and Podolski don’t fine-tune their finishing, we’ll be missing a lot of chances or become over-reliant on our world-class midfield.
The second half saw an Arsenal team with more bite. I always say Rosciky has a certain tempo he brings to the game, and we saw that again today when he came on with Theo. Personally, I think Ozil’s passing is being under utilised; imagine a clinical assassin like Suarez or Cavani or Ibrahimovic at the end of his passes…that’s what goal heaven is made of.
Everton again has made the best loan moves any club has done in a long while. The loan signings of Lukaku, Deulofeu and Barry make Everton the team to beat (bar us and maybe until recently, Liverpool/Southampton).
Of our players, I think Ramsey and Carzola were nowhere to be seen today, however, players can’t be 100% , hundred percent of the time. We have Tottenham to play in the FA Cup along with Napoli in CL and Manchester City and Chelsea in the EPL…the true test of strength begins.
Match Data | Highlights | Press Conference
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