Arsenal joint top after routine win over Everton
Goals from Ezri Konsa and Gabriel Magalhaes helped Arsenal to a 2-0 win over Everton, taking it level on points with Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.
In teeming rain at Emirates Stadium, Arsenal's centre-backs provided the key moments in front of goal, with Konsa netting for the first time since his arrival from Aston Villa and Gabriel making the points safe midway through the second half.
Everton had some brief moments in attack, most notably when David Raya won a one-on-one duel with Thierno Barry at 1-0, but Mikel Arteta's side held on to take advantage of City's earlier defeat at Aston Villa.
Arsenal had been uncharacteristically poor from set-pieces at the start of this season, failing to score from a dead ball in 12 matches across all competitions, excluding penalties, but its old strength returned in the seventh minute.
Gabriel's flick-on from a Martin Odegaard delivery had Jordan Pickford scrambling, and with Vitalii Mykolenko falling to ground at the far post, there was nobody to stop Konsa from prodding home.
Tyrique George curled wide as Everton threatened on the break, but Arsenal also had chances to extend its advantage through Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke.
Everton was almost gifted an equaliser when Ben White's lacklustre header played Barry through, but Raya was equal to his outside-of-the-boot flick, then Mikel Merino nodded over from a Declan Rice free-kick in the final action of the first half.
The start of the second half saw the opportunities dry up at both ends, with Gabriel playing on after an injury scare and Pickford falling on a threatening left-wing centre from Eze.
But Arsenal doubled its advantage when a neat move culminated in White making an overlapping run and crossing to the far post, where Gabriel rose highest to head into the left side of the goal with 68 minutes on the clock.
Everton never really looked likely to cause any late nerves among the home fans, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall heading wide from its best chance and eight minutes of stoppage-time passed without incident.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta lauded Gabriel after the game and was full of praise for his centre back.
"I think he's one of the best centre-backs in the world, no question, with the impact he has in both boxes," he said.
"His leadership, his presence, what he offers to the rest of the boys is unique and we're very happy to have him."
And on the win itself, Arteta added: "Really happy. We made five changes. We've had three games in less than six days, so we knew how tough it was going to be.
"But I thought the team performed really well. I thought it was really active from the beginning, put a lot of pressure on the opposition.
"Players are in good moments and they need minutes. They all did really well."
Everton boss David Moyes felt the early goal made things too difficult for his side.
"[Going 1-0 down early] made it hard and we couldn't really get ourselves back into the game after that," he said.
"Huffed and puffed a little bit, stuck at it for long parts of the game, which was good. We never gave them anything easy but, in the end, we didn't have enough.
"We didn't do enough in an attacking sense, but we certainly did a really good job defensively, trying to make it difficult."
