Gyokeres gets early Christmas present as Arsenal overcome depleted Everton

A happy Christmas and a happy anniversary for Mikel Arteta ? In part, anyway. The Arsenal manager can testify from bitter experience that being the Christmas No 1 is no guarantee he will occupy top spot in May. But, six years to the day since his appointment, Arteta overcame a club he represented for six years.

The importance of a largely forgettable affair may be measured in points, or in Arsenal ’s immediate response to being demoted to second, or in the identity of the scorer. Arsenal’s spell off the summit only spanned five hours before they leapfrogged Manchester City. After failing to win any of their previous three away league games, this represented a three-point turn in their fortunes on the road. However, it felt more a test in theory than practice, with Everton both depleted and complicit in their own downfall.

For Viktor Gyokeres , the presents came from opponents and colleagues alike. A striker who required a goal got a first in six games and just a second in 11 after two acts of generosity: from Jake O’Brien to concede a penalty and his teammates to let him take it. While Bukayo Saka has scored two spot-kicks this season, one with the summer signing on the pitch, Arsenal can alternate between takers. Gyokeres nevertheless has the track record to be the regular. Since joining Sporting CP, he has taken 19 penalties in league matches, whether in Portugal or England, and scored 19.

All of which made O’Brien’s aberration all the more costly. The Irishman’s needless handball was more volleyball than football, preventing Riccardo Calafiori from getting a header at goal, but leading to one nonetheless. Gyokeres fired his spot kick into the back of the net.

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Arsenal had rarely looked like scoring before then; neither had Everton , with the first quarter of an hour elapsing without either attempting a shot. Gyokeres had glanced a header wide but had been well policed. Yet O’Brien had survived one appeal for a penalty, for a nudge on the Swede, and did not appear to learn his lesson.

Gyokeres was industrious without looking particularly incisive, his 65 minutes on the pitch bringing a booking for kicking the ball away but few indications he will go on a goalscoring burst. Perhaps, though, he will leave Merseyside with momentum.

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Arsenal were largely uninspired before the break but more expansive thereafter. They almost doubled their lead and were twice denied by the woodwork. After Saka had a shot cleared off the line by James Tarkowski, Leandro Trossard bent a shot against the far post and then Martin Zubimendi drilled one into the upright.

If each was a sign the match was becoming more open, Everton could be forgiven for beginning to focus on being obdurate. David Moyes opted for man-for-man marking in midfield, pitting Tim Iroegbunam up against Declan Rice.

Everton had an added need to be awkward, lacking three-fifths of Moyes’ preferred midfield due to either injury or the African Cup of Nations. Without two of their three most creative players, in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Iliman Ndiaye, the first goal assumed an added importance, but it was handed to Arsenal.

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It was, though, a sign of Everton’s impotence that they went 30 minutes without touching the ball in the Arsenal box during the first half. It may have been a sign of a scrappy game that their best hope of an equaliser involved referee Sam Barrott. But, in a match of penalty appeals, William Saliba escaped when kicking Thierno Barry’s foot.

Barry was otherwise ineffectual and, as tends to be the case when that happens, was replaced by Beto. Meanwhile, the striker who left Everton in the summer, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, was busy scoring twice for Leeds , getting as many league goals in an evening as the current Toffees strike duo have all season.

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For Arsenal’s clean-sheet kings, however, a job was completed with few alarms. They exerted authority and played with a control that stemmed from having superior players.

Perhaps, too, from a knowledge they often see such matches through. Arsenal have not lost a Premier League away game they led at half-time since a visit to Everton four years ago, which proved a rare highlight of Rafa Benitez’s reign. There was no repeat. Arsenal have suffered one defeat on Merseyside this season, but it was at Anfield.

So one meeting of north London and Merseyside was explosive entertainment; but enough of Tottenham against Liverpool . This was a more subdued affair.

And for Arteta, who played his part in many a hard-fought win for Moyes in his Everton years, borrowing from a mentor helped beat him. Arsenal are back in the familiar position at the head of the standings. But the hard part, as Arteta knows all too well, is being there after 38 games.