Ronald Koeman has presided over a difficult start to a season in which his team of too many No10s seems to lack purpose following the loss Romelu Lukaku
Midway through the Europa League defeat by Lyon at Goodison on Thursday, just before the fighting broke out in fact, the chap in the next seat turned to me and said he wouldn’t mind sticking £100 on Everton to beat Arsenal at the weekend. “They are clearly concentrating on that game,” he argued, pointing to the fact that Wayne Rooney, Leighton Baines and a couple of other regulars had been left out of the side to face Lyon. “And come on, Everton always beat Arsenal.”
Not true, actually. If you look back over the past five years there have been just two home league wins over Arsène Wenger’s side. There was the one last season, when a late goal from Ashley Williams sealed a 2-1 victory that ended a sequence of five winless games and put a little momentum back into Everton’s league campaign, and a tidy 3-0 trouncing in Roberto Martínez’s first season that the manager described as “tactically perfect”.
Related: Everton give life ban to child-holding fan who attacked Lyon player
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