It’s gotta be a quick one from me today because as I tap away from my keyboard the game is about three hours away, so I’ll try to make it snappy (but inevitably won’t).

Firstly, some props to David Moyes, who joked that he’s owed £50million from Arsenal fans because they sold Declan at £100million and not £150million. As much as I don’t like his style of play, as much as I hope we batter them today, I do like the dour Scot brand that Moyes has established over the years. He’s a surly, rugged, old-school Premier League manager who will occasionally give you sound bites like that Rice coment that are worth a chuckle over.

Whether he has the last laugh come 3pm today remains to be seen. He’s overhauled the form of Everton and under his relatively short second spell there, they’ve moved far enough away from the relegation zone, that the remaining games they have at Goodison will be a celebration of their old stadium, rather than a nail biting slog to see if they’re still a Premier League club come the end of May. Everton do this though; I feel like every year at some stage they’re in the relegation conversation, but they always seem to haul themselves clear of it. Sometimes they cut it to the wire, like that season they had Lampard in charge and it went to the last day, but this time around they find themselves in the lower-mid parts of the Premier League (with Tottenham) and they don’t really have much to worry about. I doubt that will manifest itself today as a bit of a walk in the park for us, but with it being a lunchtime Saturday kick off, one can hope that we’ll get a sleepy Goodison and an Everton side who know they are not going down and so don’t face the same urgency as they would have if they were in the relegation zone right now.

The problem we have is that we also have our eyes on other things. We play Real Madrid on Tuesday and with Big Gabby being the latest Arsenal player to be struck down with The Great Hamstring Curse of 2024/25, most Arsenal fans can be forgiven for basically just wanting us to get through today unscathed. We’re four points clear of Forest, I reckon we need four or five wins from our next eight to secure second spot, but our season is going to peter out to nothing if/when we go out to Real Madrid. So today’s game feels a little bit more of an inconvenience than I think most of us will have wanted.

We can talk like that, but of course the Arsenal manager and his players can’t, because they have a job to do and that job involves picking up the points at a ground in which we’ve had mixed fortunes over the years. I feel like about 10 years ago it was a ground we’d usually go there and win at, but not in recent years and under the Dyche era it was particularly turgid and unwatchable stuff. Indeed, you don’t have to look far to see the dross that was that 0-0 at The Emirates earlier in the season to see the Everton blueprint. But I have hopes that today will not be the same; Everton are clear of danger (ish), they only have a few more games in their famous old stadium before they depart it, so there will be an element of wanting to put on a show this lunchtime. I hope.

That might bring about a bit more of an open game today and Lord knows we need that. Too many teams play Arsenal with the “stay compact and deep” mantra and it doesn’t make for the most fun of watching if everyone is honest. The pundits will be routing for Everton (it’s on TNT Sports so McManaman and ‘Fletch’ will absolutely be on one today in the UK), so we’ll have to be better at opening up a team that Moyes will make sure is solid and physical today. They should be without Tarkowski after his horror tackle in the Merseyside Derby in midweek, but it shows you just what we’re going to be up against today; a classic “get into em lads” game that will be physical, that might stretch the boundaries of what is legal, that is going to have us wincing at times, but we have to get through it.

I don’t think – Kiwior for Gabriel aside – that we’ll see too many changes. Perhaps Martinelli goes wide right and Trossard wide left, but perhaps Arteta will also be thinking of resting Gabby in Attack today, with an eye on Madrid? He could very easily start with Nwaneri and Trossard in those wide positions, although I suspect it won’t be the most funnest of watches if we do – both of those players have struggled of late and whilst Nwaneri gets a pass, Trossard less so. It would be nice to see him have a good game today and prove he can still deliver; a goal from him this lunchtime wouldn’t go amiss.

In defence the question marks are over White and Timber but I can’t see Ben starting. He’s barely played at all for months and if Timber is ok I think Arteta opts for him over the Englishmen. I’m fine with that, I just hope Jurrien is, because again we have a guy here whose going to be important for us on Tuesday night as we face the might of somebody like Vinny Jr.

And with that I’m going to stop today. I do fancy us to win this one, despite the fact that it will feel a little ‘meh’ in the run up, because I think we’ll have enough to get one last Goodison win under our belt. I don’t think it’ll be a high-scoring affair, but hopefully we can get the one that wins it, whilst keeping them shut out at the other end.

Catch you all tomorrow.