Arsenal v Everton: Premier League final day â live | Premier League
Key events
16 min Lovely from Arsenal Martinelli laying back to White and collecting the return, dipping inside Branthwaite via nutmeg â the defender can be found somewhere around Selhurst Park â but his shot is a little dragged and again, Pickford saves well.
14 min Odegaard fancies it today and he coaxes a ball to the far post where Trossard turns back ⦠only to Pickford to prang behind, flapping a paw to send the ball behind before Havertz can tap hame.
13 min At the Etihad, City have West Ham punkt under the pump.
11 min Arsenal have lost a bit of their early momentum â a banger from a rival can do that to a team â and Everton are stating to play. The home side wonât mind that, necessarily â theyâll enjoy seeing Young in their half â but whatâs this?! Branthwaite tries a suicidal pass across his own box, Martinelli intercepts and a lush touch from Odegaard sets the onrushing Rice for a shot ⦠but from 12 yards, he can only drag a tiddler that Pickford saves easily at his near post.
9 min There are few teams more comfy in a rearguard than Everton, and their defenders, centre-backs especially, are fine box-men. Arsenal will need to prise them apart, and I wonder if third-man runs from their two number 8s are that they need to force that.
7 min Arsenal need to be careful now â the players will presumably hear whatâs gone on in Manchester, and need to keep themselves focused to make sure they do their job. West Ham are more than capable of staying in the game until the closing stages (in theory).
6 min Rice teases a decent ball to the back post and Tomiyasuâs up ⦠but from close-range he can only bungle a poor header wide. In co-comms, even Kindly Coisty reckons he shouldâve scored.
5 min OH MY COMPLETE AND UTTER DAYS! Fill Phoden has just spanked in a sensational opener, astonished into the top corner from 20 yards, after 70-summat seconds!
4 min Odegaaard slides a characteristically clever reverse-pass down the side of the box for Martinelli, his cut-back is deflected and the ballâs loose in the box ⦠but sprinting on to it, Tomiyasu canât quite get there in time to finish, his shot blocked away.
3 min Theyâve only just started at the Etihad.
3 min Back to Martinelli, my guess is that his superior pace â and therefore his ability to go on the outside â is why heâs on the right, rather than the two-footed Trossard, who arteta wants attacking the box and closer to goal.
2 min Arsenal have started like they mean it â theyâre passing with tempo and conviction, Evertonâs lines shuffling across to restrict their space.
1 min Ah, itâs Martinelli on the right with Trodssard on the left; ther former Havertz on the corner of the box, and he curves a decent effort wide of the far post.
1 min Away we go!
The players take the knee: all Black lives matter.
The PA plays North London Forever and weâre almost ready to go.
And here come the teams!
âGood morning from Pittsburgh!â chirps Eric Peterson. âItâs been a really weird month for this Evertonian, with so many games being played upon which survival doesnât depend. Feels more like August than May. Oh well, I imagine the offseason will bring copious harbingers of doom courtesy of this whole 777 debacle. Like Rosanna Rosannadanna said, it just goes to show you, itâs always something.â
Our players are tunnelledâ¦
âRe Arteta being devoid of ruthlessness,â writes Osman Aden. âCouldnât disagree more. He was ruthless with Ozil, then with Aubameyang, whoâd just won him an FA Cup. Recently, heâs not been shy to take a broom to the old groups of squad players (Chambers, Rob Holding, etc). But this season, most pertinently, Aaron Ramsdale, to the consternation of most of the press. I think he is more ruthless than you give him credit for. IMHO, he might be a bit too ruthless⦠(Iâd have certainly kept Ramsdaleâ¦)â
Ah, I need to clarify: I said he was devoid of ruth, i.e. ruthless, so weâre in agreement. Raya was an opportunity, I guess: get him in and if heâs good, sell Ramsdale, and if not, sell him.
Gabriel is, I think, the player Cristian Romero should be, in that heâs largely discarded the wildness that made him a high-class semi-liability. Heâs had a fantastic season â better even, perhaps, than his partner.
The other day, someone â Martin Keown I think â compared Gabriel and Saliba to Vidic and Ferdinand. Thereâs not much higher praise than that, and though theyâre a handful of titles and a Champions League behind, I see a congruence in the way they complement each other, Gabriel the slightly wild ball-monster and Saliba the smooth sweeper-upper â with each also able to the otherâs job.
Oh goodness me, Rio is also wearing broon managerâs plimsolls.
Also for your delectation:
Email! ââ¦And relax.â begins Charles Antaki. âTheir fans know that Arsenal arenât going to win the league â they might not even win this game â but it doesnât matter. Itâs been great. We can revel in Declan Riceâs Stakhanovite up-and-downing, drool at Ãdegaardâs talent, cherish Sakaâs general lovability (and wish that Arteta had given the boy a bit more of a rest occasionally) and take vicarious delight in Ben Whiteâs skulduggery. Also: Saliba, Gabriel, Havertz. Plus much more. The league? Maybe next year.â
Thereâs an old writerly saying that, when editing and revising work, youâve to âkill your darlings,â i.e. take out stuff you love because itâs not a perfect fit, thereby elevating the work. Arteta, Iâm sure, loves his players but also seems a bloke totally devoid of ruth; heâll have to show it this summer, I think, to take this team on.
Where is the game? Everton will make Arsenal go around them if they possibly can, Onana and Gueye patrolling the width of the pitch in front of the back four. Without Saka, Arsenal might find this harder than usual â Leandro Trossard might have to go on the outside, if he can, while Ben White underlaps, in order to stretch the pitch.
Otherwise, Iâm a little surprised itâs Takehiro Tomiyasu at left-back, not the more offensive and creative Oleks Zinchenko, because I canât see James Garner running at anyone. But heâs on the bench â as is Jurrien Timber â should he be required.
Everton, meanwhile, will look to get at Arsenal from set-pieces and crosses â Garner and McNeil are both capable of excellent delivery â but otherwise, expect them to stay in shape and invite Arsenal to break them down.
Sean Dyche says itâs been a difficult season, some self-inflicted some not, and everyone involved with the club deserves praise, him included. Yes, he really did say that; of course he did. Everton are in a good place now, he reckons, and their job today is to play well.
Of course thereâs also this that might be more relevant: an Arsenal side who, with the league gone, turned on the ridiculous style at the end of 02-03.
Back to Tony Adams, he, of course, scored an alright goal playing at home to Everton in 1998. I canât lie, I was on my gap yah at the time and I may or may not have missed it, scarpering from the pub at half-time to avoid grief off my mates, and looking back, thereâs something moving about the look of pure peacefulness on Adamsâ face as he celebrated. He mustâve feared heâd never again experience a moment like that; he mustâve feared he might never again experience a moment; so who can begrudge it him?
On the way to the bus stop, I called my dad, who advised me â OK, consoled me â with the news that Manchester City had been relegated. Not sure those are words anyone will be typing anytime soon.
But heâs not the only former England centre-back and lifestyle guru making a statementâ¦
Photograph: TNT
A tremendous rig from TA, perhaps missing three Adidas stripes down the arms and a JVC in the middle.
Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
On which point, two players in Evertonâs spine are very highly rated, Jarron Branthwaite and Amadou Onana, so how do we see them? I like Branthwaite, but wonder if heâs got elite-level potential, but have never seen Onana play well enough for me see him as close to that level â and being left out of a struggling side, as he has been this season, also makes me wonder.
Everton are unchanged following last weekendâs narrow win over Sheffield United, and thereâs a fairly solid look about this XI. I expect Arsenal to win, but I also expect theyâll have to work for it.
There are those who think heâs at Arsenal to avoid presenting the trophy to City given the 115 outstanding charges; he explains that thatâs just what they decided, which totally quashes all speculation and gets those wondering what on earth is going on conclusively telt. Amazingly Predictably, heâs asked no further questions on the topic.
He thinks itâs been a good season, doesnât want to bin VAR â why would he I guess, seems unlikely heâs ever had an epochal goon for the sake of a subjective call made destroyed by a bloke in a truck at Stockley Park â but think sit has to improve. Naturally, he offers no detail whatsoever on this point.
Sakaâs spot goes to Gabriel Martinelli, who Martin Keown says was dynamite in training when he went to watch on Wednesday but excuse my while I interrupt myself: Richard Masters, Premier league head syoot, is being interveiwed.
No I wonât; Arteta, clad in seasonal all black, is being interviewed by BT. Artetz explains that Saka has always been available â something his manager made a mission â and was gutted to pick up a a slight muscle injury in training. Otherwise, the Arsenal gaffer says it should be a special day, that City and Liverpool have set the standards, his men know the task is big and they need to be âalmost perfectâ â theyâve tried and will see if itâs enough.
Arteta wants help from the home crowd, congratulates Everton for what theyâve done in a difficult season, and thatâs wa lot.
Iâll write these down, then weâll wonder what they mean.
Perhaps the greatest thing about football â and, much as we enjoy poking fun at it, its shortlist is damn long â is that, unlike the majority of days in our lives, stuff happens. Stuff of which we could never have previously conceived, that sticks with us forevermore and facilitates the second-greatest thing about football: the ability to behave in a manner deemed unacceptable in any other environment, alongside an incomparable meld of people we love and complete strangers. There is nothing remotely like it.
So, while it seems unlikely that Arsenal end the day as league champions for the first time in two decades â and who wouldâve predicted that in May 2004? â as the saying goes, man plans and football laughs.
We could, of course, respond by saying well, only once has the side starting the final day top of the table failed to end it dancing about with a silver pot. But equally, we could reference â for example â 1964-65, 1971-72, 1994-95, 1998-99, 2011-12 and 2021-22, all of which featured denouement shenaniga of intense proportions. Which is to say things may side with life and conclude in a quiet, disappointing manner ⦠or football may simply take over.
Either way, itâs been another strong season for Mikel Artetaâs men, the defensive frailty which cost them at key moments last term all but eradicated this. Even if today goes against them, theyâre closer to the summit than before, and the next step on their climb is obvious: the addition or development of world-class attackers able to redeem poor performances or rich profligacy with match-winning contributions.
Given the above, itâd be easy to forget that weâve two teams playing at the Emirates today, but the visitors also deserve plenty of praise for how theyâve shaken out. An eight-point deduction might easily have led to their relegation and, though theyâve been helped by promoted clubs always likely to return whence they came, no side will relish returning to face Sean Dyche, having rolled over for the whole world to see. Though, football being football, you never quite know. Bring it on!