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Honours Even in Emirates Battle

Everton and Arsenal battled to an entertaining stalemate at the Emirates Stadium, earning a point that does neither side many favours in the chase for the Champions League.

Arsenal 0 - 0 Everton

Everton and Arsenal battled to an entertaining stalemate at the Emirates Stadium, earning a point that does neither side many favours in the chase for the Champions League apart from the avoidance of defeat and any consequent damage to morale.

For Everton, who knew coming into these last six games of the campaign that they would have to win at least one of their trips to the Emirates, Anfield and Stamford Bridge, the draw heightens the importance of the remaining matches on their calendar, particularly the visit to Chelsea on the final day if they are still in reach of any of the London sides above them by then.

David Moyes and his players would have desperately wanted to win this one, however, and though they put in an impressively robust and determined performance, they just lacked the guile and the killer blow to nick what was a tightly contested encounter. They came close but also had to rely on some excellent defending of their own to keep Arsene Wenger's side at bay and a draw was probably a fair result.

The first 20 minutes had the Blues' intent written all over it. With Marouane Fellaini playing in a more withdrawn role to compensate for Leon Osman's absence with a groin strain, Moyes's midfield enjoyed superiority for the first quarter of the game, harrying and chasing everything that moved and reducing the Gunners to incessant whining at what they perceived to be an overly physical approach.

Jack Wilshere in particular proved singularly unable to cope with the heat and appeared to spend more time prone on the floor than with the ball at his feet in the first half — indeed, his constant moaning was enough to prompt Kevin Mirallas to cheekily squirt him with a water bottle as the players trooped off at the interval which sparked a spate of "handbags" in the tunnel as the players squared up to each other.

Everton had clearly got under Arsenal's skin by that point and could count themselves unfortunate not to have been ahead by half-time, although it was Olivier Giroud who had had the best chance of the first 45 minutes but missed a sitter when Aaron Ramsey picked him out with a wicked cross from the right that the Frenchman despatched wide of Tim Howard's left-hand post.

Mirallas had the first sight of goal as early as the fourth minute when he latched onto Ross Barkley's nicely-weighted throughball but an inadvertent touch put the ball into Wojciech Szczesny's grateful arms before he could get a shot off.

Two minutes later, an even better pass by Phil Jagielka dissected the home defence again with Steven Pienaar anticipating it brilliantly but while he got to the ball ahead of the goalkeeper who had come steaming off his line, his touch was, unfortunately, too heavy and it flew over the crossbar.

Mesmerising skill by Mirallas that took him past his marker against the touchline in almost impossible fashion set up another move that ended with Pienaar threading the Belgian in but he was fractionally offside, before two moments involving Barkley kept the Arsenal rearguard on their toes. The first was when he tried to bend a speculative effort around Szczesny but didn't get enough lift to beat the Arsenal 'keeper from 25 yard-plus; the second was a delightful piece of skill that embarrassed his marker but though he found the run of Victor Anichebe with a pass through the defence, the big striker's shot deflected off a defender and Szczesny got enough on it to be able to smother the ball after it had squirmed under his body.

Arsenal, for their part, had been muscled out of their rhythm by some tenacious tackling by the likes of Fellaini, Barkley and Gibson, with the Irishman picking up a yellow card somewhat harshly for a foul on Theo Walcott. Gibson then had the Emirates houling for a red card when he blocked off the same player just five minutes later, compounded a minute after that when Steven Pienaar was booked for an almost identical body check. Thankfully for Everton, while Neil Swarbrick should have been left with no alternative given the precedent he had set with the Pienaar decision, the referee kept a level head and merely gave Gibson a stern talking-to.

In between, Kieron Gibbs had tried to punish Fellaini for an awful clearance across his own penalty area but smashed his shot high and wide of the target from 20 yards and, in the last serious action of the first period, a superb sprawling block by Jagielka had prevented a Santi Cazorla cross from finding a target near the Blues' six-yard box.

If Everton had shaded the first half, Arsenal would enjoy the better opportunities in the second, although the first chance after half time fell invitingly to Mirallas from 25 yards but his weak left-footer was easily gathered by the goalkeeper.

At the other end, Howard did well to push Cazorla's fizzing half-volley behind, Giroud swept a first time shot narrowly over from the edge of the box after good work by Gibbs, and Sylvain Distin had defied the years with impressive acceleration to catch Walcott in full flight down the Arsenal right to dig the ball away from the winger and prevent another Arsenal opening.

With 56 minutes gone, another moment of magic by Mirallas put the excellent Seamus Coleman in on the overlap down the right but while Anichebe couldn't quite dig the ball out from under his feet to get a shot away and the ball was cleared to the edge of the box, Pienaar went down under a late tackle from Mikel Arteta that set up Leighton Baines with a direct free kick attempt. Unfortunately, the wall was allowed to encroach and his shot was charged down.

Then, after Jagielka had done very well to snuff out more danger from Gibbs after Ramsey had slipped him into the area behind the fullback slot and Everton had cleared the resulting corner, Barkley came within an inch of lighting up the contest with a lovely shimmy that opened up the space for a shot that he whipped an inch the wrong side of the upright from 25 yards. It was tremendous effort, evocative of another young Blue prodigy who made his name in a game against Arsenal a decade ago.

Being the home side and with a record of having a significant majority of their goals in the last third of the game, it was not surprising that Arsenal became increasingly dominant as the match wore on and Everton started to tire a little in the later stages. The emphasis for the Blues was more and more on diligent and courageous defending, though they didn't help themselves with Howard persisting with the tactic of knocking balls long in the direction of Anichebe that didn't, at any stage of proceedings, ever look like it was going to work. It played straight into Per Mertesaker's hands and Everton were rarely able to pick up the second ball.

That meant that the ball would often come straight back on the visitors' defence but Fellaini snuffed out the substitute Lukas Podolski's attempted cross, Ramsey's attempted backheel from the resulting corner was smothered by Howard, Coleman made an outstanding saving tackle to deny Giroud an almost certain goal after the Gunners had broken quickly with a man advantage, and the French striker blazed wide of the angle of crossbar and post with Jagielka in front of him.

Despite Nikica Jelavic replacing Barkley with 14 minutes left, Everton weren't much of a counter-attacking force in the final quarter of an hour. Anichebe was labouring by this point, having gone down with his weekly knock that always looks like it will necessitate him coming off but he ends up finishing the match anyway. The surly striker was involved in the Blues' last chance of the game in stoppage time, however, but with Coleman in plenty of space outside him, he ballooned a shot from 30 yards and a last-gasp chance to mount a significant attack went begging.

Unquestionably a point well earned, then, in the final reckoning but Moyes will have been disappointed his men couldn't pinch the three points. Arsenal, on their own turf and on a run of four consecutive wins coming into the game were always going to be supremely difficult opponents so it would have taken the creation of more chances and better finishing for Everton to win.

Unfortunately, though Anichebe ran his socks off and kept the Gunners defence constantly working, he wasn't as effective as he has been over the last couple of games in particular. Pienaar, too, was a little below par in his use of the ball in the final third where Everton generally lacked a creative spark able to unlock Arsenal's back line. Mirallas and Barkley came very close but it needed a clinical marksman to bury the chances.

The real plaudits rightly went to the defence, where Distin was impressive and Coleman and Jagielka were simply immense, the pair vying for the man-of-the-match accolades that consensus appears to indicate the Captain shaded. Fellaini, too, was excellent in his favoured position and Barkley showed genuine flashes of the player many believe he will blossom into in time and he did more than enough to perhaps earn another start against Sunderland at the weekend.

With games running out, every game is a cup final for the Blues, including the visit to the Stadium of Light to face a Black Cats side who will be bouncing after surprise Tyne and Wear derby win at Newcastle on Sunday. It's dropped points in games like those that have left Moyes with so much to do against the division's best teams so, again, only a win will really do.

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