It’s the early Saturday lunchtime kick-off for Everton as they take on Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal for the final time at Goodison Park and the world will be watching as this game is broadcast live.
With another depressing derby consigned to the history books, Everton’s players need to show some rapid powers of recovery following the effort they put in on Wednesday night with less than a 3-day gap between successive encounters against two teams at the top of the Premier League.
Hopefully David Moyes will not be tempted to start an unchanged team once again as some of the performances were well below par (Doucoure and Harrison), with Illiman Ndiaye still working his way back to full fitness. The possibility exists that Dwight McNeil will be ready. Moyes said “He is getting closer and has been back in training the past three or four days.” But he too has missed an awful lot of games and can surely only play a bit part.
McNeil was not part of the squad at Anfield, but he has been seeing in training sessions at Finch Farm. And the manager will probably have to keep faith with Beto as his lone striker despite more missed chances. Beto has failed to find the net in his last four starts after that wonderful spell when he scored a stunning five goals in four Premier League games.
But Broja has yet to score and has seemed destined to appear only as a late (usually far too late) substitute, until now, with Moyes teasing: “I think he has got some real good qualities and ability. He has got some speed about him, as well. I think we need to give him an opportunity to show what he can do.”
Other choices do not include Jesper Lindstrøm, who is seeing a specialist over his groin injury, which could be a hernia. He will not be missed as he has been so comprehensively ineffective as an attacking player during his thoroughly unconvincing loan spell at the club.
Orel Managala is out for the rest of the season but there is some better news concern Everton’s almost forgotten No 9: Dominic Calvert-Lewin has returned to work ‘on the grass’ in the past week and is now estimated to be about a month away from being capable of making a matchday squad.
The manager appears to believe that Chermiti and Iroegbunam are only good enough for the subs bench. A bit more faith has been shown in Charly Alcaraz, who provides a lingering hope that pure footballing skill so rarely seen nowadays in an Everton shirt can elevate this performance above the mundane defensive slog that remains Moyes’s modus operandi. But his performance against Liverpool was largely anonymous.
Moyes certainly faces a huge challenge to get anything out of this game, as his extended ‘new manager’ bounce ultimately came to an end in a miserable second-half performance that culminated in defeat across the park, albeit to a goal that was clearly offside.
Having overseen just one win in the last eight games, with his fabled defensive prowess boasting no clean sheets at all in that sequence, it certainly puts a different gloss on what should have been a 10-match unbeaten run going into this fixture.
Arteta will be without defender Gabriel, who will miss the remainder of the season after the club confirmed he requires hamstring surgery; he was substituted in the first half of Arsenal’s 2-1 win against Fulham at the Emirates on Tuesday. But Saka returns and will no doubt be a handful for the Everton defenders.
Arsenal seem to have found their way again last month, remaining unbeaten after they suffered a couple of surprising defeats in February, to West Ham Utd and Newcastle Utd.
Kick-Off: 12:30 pm BST, Saturday April 5 2025, live on TNT Sports 1
Referee: Darren England.
Assistants: Scott Ledger, Akil Howson.
Fourth official: Bobby Madley.
Video Assistant Referee: Stuart Attwell.
Assistant VAR: Wade Smith.