Arsenal re-established a five-point lead over Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table courtesy of a 4-0 win over Everton at the Emirates Stadium.
Seeking vengeance over the Toffees following last month’s defeat at Goodison Park, the floodgates opened for the Gunners after a frustrating opening 40 minutes, as Gabriel Martinelli netted twice alongside strikes from Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka.
The Emirates faithful had likely braced themselves for a first-half slog, and the opening exchanges largely followed the script to a tee, with Sean Dyche’s men sitting back and containing the Gunners with relative ease.
The Toffees would pose a slight threat on the counter-attack, with public enemy number one Neal Maupay often finding himself in good positions, and Gabriel Magalhaes had to make a crucial interception to prevent the Frenchman from scoring a tap-in in the 29th minute.
However, a brief lapse in concentration for Everton just before the break would prove fatal, as in the 40th minute, Oleksandr Zinchenko fed Saka inside the box, and the 21-year-old took the ball excellently on the half-turn before firing home over Jordan Pickford into the roof of the net.
Only a few minutes after registering his 50th Premier League goal involvement – becoming the sixth-youngest player in history to do so – Saka was involved in the second, robbing an idle Idrissa Gueye high up the field and setting Martinelli on his way to slot home from close range.
The offside flag initially went up against the Brazilian, but a VAR review came to the Gunners’ rescue, and the goal was given to hand Mikel Arteta’s men some welcome breathing room at the break.
Galvanised by their late first-half surge, Arsenal were close to making it three through Leandro Trossard in the 57th minute, but the Belgian’s volley into the ground bounced harmlessly over.
Futile attempts from the visitors to claw their way back into the game were comfortably quelled by Arsenal, who put the cherry on the icing on the cake in the 71st minute, as Trossard burst into the box from the left, and his cutback found Odegaard, whose first-time finish took a deflection off Vitaly Mykolenko on its way into the back of the net.
However, with last month’s Goodison Park beating still fresh in their minds, Arsenal were on the warpath, and Martinelli made it a brace for himself in the 80th minute – finishing through the legs of Pickford from close range after meeting Eddie Nketiah’s cutback from the left.
Now boasting 60 points after just 25 games of the 2022-23 season, Arsenal now prepare to host Bournemouth on Saturday, while Everton – who remain 18th – are next in action away to Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
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