Everton 1 Arsenal 1: Premier League title slips further from Gunners’ grasp after Lewis-Skelly gives away vital penalty
DAVID MOYES had vowed that he wasn’t thinking about being a good neighbour to that Red lot across Stanley Park.
But that is what he became, with the help of Iliman Ndaye’s spot kick equaliser in the clash that Mikel Arteta will know marked the end of what had already looked like a mission impossible.
Liverpool’s lead over Arteta’s injury-ravaged Gunners has been cut by one but it’s still double figures.
With seven games left the Gunners still have a mathematical chance of catching Arne Slot’s leaders but this was not a performance from the Prem’s second-top team that suggested a miracle might be on the cards.
A Beechers Brook moment isn’t about to happen.
Arsenal were just average in the main apart from Leandro Trossard’s fine first half opener.
Arteta, meanwhile, picked a side with one eye on Tuesday’s Champions League showpiece showdown with Real Madrid.
He couldn’t have faulted the effort but the chances of him picking up his first title are next to nil – and the look on his face as he shook hands with opposite number David Moyes said it all.
Arsenal could easily have been ahead by the second minute after Jordan Pickford had a real shocker.
The England No 1, famously familiar with a rush of blood, mis – his kicked outside of the box and on his 100th successive Prem appearance was thankful that a block bunch of defenders forced away Raheem Sterling’s shot.
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Soon after Jarrad Branthwaite rescued the Toffees, their brains scrambled by a collection of set – piece attacks created by the side that uses that tactic better then anyone in the league.
Declan Rice’s corner from the left was swinging into the top corner before the central defender just managed to head clear.
Arteta will not have been surprised that his own defence, patched up and without the crucial presence of Gabriel, out for the rest of the season as the latest hamstrung victim, struggled at times against their opponents’ own bombs-away ariel assaults.
With Polish make-weight Jakub Kiwior making a rare Prem start, there were scary moments for Pickford’s opposite number David Raya.
And had Jake O’Brien reacted quicker, he would have grabbed the opener but Abdoulaye Doucoure’s head flick slammed against his chest.
Mikel Merino would later go down as O’Brien returned to cause a little more havoc.
The pair clashed heads – on and the Spaniard, playing deeper instead of as a makeshift striker, needed four minutes treatment on a bloody wound.
This was not a meeting of creative minds. More bish-bosh and bluster but Trossard did add the first half’s only moment of quality as he put the Gunners ahead in the 34th minute.
Quality was seriously lacking, for sure, in the way Idrissa Gueye blundered to allow Sterling to break from mid-way in the Arsenal half.
Gueye got in the way of Branthwaite and produced a header that went straight to the former England winger and off he jetted.
His touch to the waiting Frenchman was a good one, too, and Trossard swerved wide of O’Brien before depositing a fine low left footer beyond Pickford’s stretch.
Trossard, playing through the middle as an alternative to Merino, could have a second before the break but then we saw why Tarkowski is such a vital physical presence at the back for the Toffees.
He shouldn’t, really have been on the pitch at all after somehow escaping a mid – week red card for his “leg-breaker” challenge on Alexis Mac Allister in Liverpool’s 1-0 Merseyside derby win that meant Arsenal were starting a dozen points behind the leaders.
But his guts can’t be questioned.
Trossard found himself almost clean through but was destabilised by Tarkowski’s desperate challenge as he shot against Pickford’s chest.
The re-bound flew straight to Rice but there was the home captain again, throwing his body at the shot.
Success for Trossard would have given Arsenal welcome extra breathing space in this feisty meeting that didn’t lack commitment at least.
Instead Everton were level after Miles Lewis-Skelly was caught on the back foot by Jack Harrison 70 seconds after the re-start.
The winger landed on the deck, Enngland’s 18-year-old left-back prodigy guilty of catching him although he claimed the challenge first started outside the box.
Referee Darren England pointed straight to the spot, VAR Stuart Atwell agreed, and Ndiaye calmly sent Pickford to claim penalty success for the fifth time in a row on his first start since being injured in the first of this season’s Mersey derbies in February.
Arteta’s men were stunned – skipper Jorginho booked for protesting that decision – and could have gone behind only for Raya to stand firm against a fierce low strike from Doucoure.
They might then have gone back ahead, too, but Pickford’s reaction to a pile-driver from Rice was just as strong.
Arteta, now all black looks, had thrown on Gabriel Martinelli for Sterling at half – time while Martin Odegaard, like the winger being saved for Tuesday night and Real, replaced Jorginho with 19 minutes left.
But the narrative was more about desperation. And the final whistle, even with spoils shared, will have been for him despair.