Everton vs Arsenal: A test of timing for Gunners as hosts welcome new manager

I written often on this blog about the serendipitous qualities of timing when it comes to the Premier League.

Sometimes, you catch an opponent at their lowest ebb, at the end of an exhausting run of games, or amidst a particularly acute injury crisis and your relative freshness or lack of injuries makes the victory much easier, perhaps even unexpectedly so.

On other occasions, your timing couldn’t be worse and you find yourself on the end of a thumping that, if circumstances had been even a little more favourable, might not have occurred. These things happen and are all part of the game of football and, indeed, life.

Without straying too far into the realms of Epicurean philosophy, however, I do firmly believe in that element of timing – or luck in other worse – when it comes to football. This weekend, as we get set to face Everton, I believe we found ourselves a little shorter of it than we might like.

Two weeks ago, the trip to Goodison Park would have been an altogether different kettle of fish. Under Frank Lampard, the Toffees were tepid, predictable and easy to beat – their league position doesn’t lie. I would have been shocked if we’d have come away from Merseyside with anything short of three points.

Fast-forward a few weeks, however, a relative eternity in football, and the picture is a little less clear. With Sean Dyche now at the helm, this will be an entirely different game of football.

That’s not to mythologise the capabilities of Dyche or of this Everton squad, by the way, because they are where they are for good reason. Rather, it is to recognise the effect that can be created by the arrival of a new manager, both on players and fans.

In short, it’s seldom good to be first out of the gate when a new coach comes to town, making this a bad time to be playing Everton.

All that said, it is worth remembering that, under Mikel Arteta, this Arsenal side have found a way of defying all odds, expectations, and precedents. While Dyche is a canny operator and a purveyor of a particular brand of football, he is not the messiah, nor are his players 1970s Brazil.

A fast start is likely to be crucial against a re-organised, re-energised defence because, as history has shown, a low block rarely gets easier to play against as the minutes tick by. If we can steal ahead early, it will go a long way to reshaping the game to our advantage.

Fortunately, fast starts have become something of a specialty under Arteta and we will need every ounce of impact on Saturday. Sleepy starts, so often the preserve of the early Saturday kick-off, won’t cut it.

In terms of personnel, barring a slight question mark over Thomas Partey, I suspect we won’t see many changes to the team that thumped Manchester United. The opportunity to rest some legs for the trip to Manchester City last weekend will hopefully also have soothed a few aches among the squad too and a few weeks for some of our new acquisitions to settle into the squad will have done no harm either.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this trip to Goodison could have come at a better time for us but, with the squad where it is at the moment, we can hopefully rise above the less tangible elements of this fixture and let our quality decide matters.