RAFA BOOSTED BY GRAY ROCKET
Everton snatch late win after Richarlison suffers VAR nightmare
SIGNS of life from Everton at last. Rafael Benitez’s team only played for about 20 minutes here at Goodison Park but it was enough. From a goal down to victory in the blink of a disbelieving eye. This was some comeback, some finale.
Whether it breathes new and sustained life into their troubled season remains to be seen. But this was the very definition of thrilling all the same.
Arsenal have now lost twice in the North West in the space of four days and continue to wrestle with an identity crisis all of their own. Last Thursday they were disappointed to come out the wrong side of a tight one at Manchester United but this will have felt like a different level of disbelief altogether.
The visiting team were not particularly impressive in what had been a poor game for an hour or more but they led through a Martin Odegaard goal scored in added time at the end of quite the most dismal first half of football this famous place can have witnessed for quite some time.
Nevertheless Arsenal were marginally the better of two poor teams for the most part and in truth seemed increasingly comfortable sitting on their lead as Everton continued to seek confidence, inspiration and fluency late into the game.
Benitez, for all his troubles this season, does have some quality in his team, however. And it was a combination of the Brazilian striker Richarlison and young English winger Demarai Gray who somehow came together to turn this game round in the final moments.
Richarlison had already seen two ‘goals’ disallowed for offside — one in each half — when Gray let fly from 20 yards in the 80th minute. Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale may just have touched the ball on to the crossbar but when it bounced down, Richarlison was alive enough to head the rebound in to an empty goal.
The 24-year-old celebrated like a player who had waited a while. This was only his second Premier League goal since mid-August and as he threw himself into the embrace of team-mates at the Gwladys Street End, it was almost possible over the din to hear the release of a pressure valve.
A draw at this stage felt like something in itself for Benitez and his players. Last week’s 4-1 home dismantling by Liverpool for long periods seemed to have drained the life from them. Given that Richarlison’s two earlier efforts had been disallowed, Gray’s shot was actually his team’s first on target of the whole night. Yet, somehow and quite thrillingly, there was to be more.
As Arsenal substitute Eddie Nketiah headed a late chance against the post from two yards and the fourth official signalled six minutes of added time, Everton mounted one final surge.
Gray, cutting in from the left and now fuelled by late adrenaline, seemed only to be travelling sideways across the top of the penalty area but that in itself gave him an angle and another right-foot strike — from a similar distance to his first — flew past a static Ramsdale and into the net off the goalkeeper’s left-hand post.
What a goal. What a finish to what at times had been a desperately ordinary evening. For Everton this was a first Premier League win in nine games. Arsenal have now lost three of their lost four. With as little as 15 minutes left, none of that seemed in any way likely.
Everton will be elated and relieved. They will not care much for the details of this game, only the outcome. Arsenal, for their part, will rue further missed opportunity but will also carry a sense of injustice back to London.
Mikel Arteta’s team should probably have been a man up when Everton’s Ben Godfrey allowed his foot to come down on the face of Takehiro Tomiyasu with the game scoreless in the first half.
The replays looked awful, Godfrey’s left foot making firm contact after the ball had gone. VAR officials had a look and decided to take a lenient view. That seemed perplexing, though the fact that Godfrey was looking the opposite way when his foot left its mark might have been a reason to save him.
In the second half Godfrey was fortunate again. This time a reckless lunge at Bukayo Sako
brought him a yellow. It seemed touch and go and while Gordon has not got a reputation as a malicious player he might need to be rather more careful when his blood is up in future.
Arsenal might not have cared had they held on to their lead. Their goal was a nice one, Odegaard volleying in after Kieran Tierney had crossed from left.
It was the only shot on goal from either team at that stage and the 200 or so Everton fans who had chosen to go home in the 27th minute — the club have gone 27 years without a trophy — seemed to have made a wise decision. Richarlison’s header had been disallowed for offside minutes before Odegaard’s goal and when he ran through to beat Ramsdale just before the hour he was frustrated by the VAR technology once again.
He could have let his head drop from that point but he did not. He was ready when Gray’s strike dropped from the bar 12 minutes later to equalise.
As Benitez tries to move this troubled, fractured club forwards, he will have reason to be deeply and rightly grateful.