Arsenal 2 Everton 1

Midfield battle...Fellaini and Song fight for the ball

David Moyes delights in taking on the big teams and making life difficult for them. He has carved out a reputation based on frustrating the perceived big sides of the premiership and last night at the Emirates was no different. Despite their lowly 14^th position, Everton are always a handful for the royalty of the premiership. Last night again, was no different.

We kicked off on the same night as Man United and Chelsea as a full programme of premier league action got underway after a weekend of FA Cup ties. After overcoming the surprisingly strong challenge of Huddersfield two days earlier, this was supposedly another test of character and Moyes’s Everton made it even stiffer.

After an initial 15 minutes that saw Everton taking the game to us, we finally found some rhythm and gradually asserted ourselves. A fine interchange between Robin Van Persie and Cesc Fabregas in the 20^th minute, which saw the Dutchman backheeling a perfectly weighted pass onto the path of the onrushing Spaniard, opened up the Everton defence but Fabregas’ shot was wide off the mark agonisingly.

We continued to make inroads into their defence with Van Persie and Walcott taking turns to run at Sylvain Distin and John Heitinga in the middle of their defence. It yielded nothing, except a Walcott snapshot that Mike Howard in goal for Everton saved comfortably with his legs.

The game turned on its head in the 33^rd minute when an Everton ball over the top, cleared our defence and a Koscielny attempt to boot it out only helped it into the path of the lurking Louis Saha. He had all the time and space in the world to pick his spot and shoot coolly past the exposed Wojciech Szszesny in goal. Fabregas immediately led the protestations that Saha was offside, which was correct but Koscielny’s inadvertent interception had diverted the ball into Saha’s path, thus rendering his offside position invalid.

The boos rang out en masse around the Emirates as the game progressed and an incensed crowd directed their anger at Lee Mason and his officials.

We regrouped in the second half though without Alex Song, who had picked up a thigh strain and had to be replaced by Abou Diaby. Everton sat back to soak up the expected onslaught and were doing a pretty good job of it until the introduction of Andrei Arshavin and Nicklas Bendtner in the 70th minute for Jack Wilshire and the perennially ineffective Tomas Rosicky.

The leveller came to a huge relief when Fabregas lifted a delightful ball over the top of the Everton defence and Jack Rodwell’s weak attempt at heading it only helped the ball into the path of the lurking Arshavin. Unmarked and unsighted, the little Russian coolly slotted the ball beyond the stranded Howard and redeemed himself before 60,000 relieved Gooners in the stadium. After being behind for a greater part of the match, it was game on now.

The clincher....Koscielny's header wins it for us

Events took a happier turn just five minutes later when an unmarked Koscielny turned instant hero as he rose to head home a Van Persie corner kick at the far post. The celebrations involving every Arsenal player who joined in at the human heap by the corner flag said it all.

Everton threw on the big Nigerian Victor Anichebe, who only scores once in a full season, when I thought I glimpsed the more dangerous Jermaine Beckford on the bench. Poor choice by Moyes but good for us though as we held on for a precious three points.

In view of Chelsea and Man United winning their respective games, it was vital, crucial, vitally-crucial that we sealed this win and maintain and fine form so far this year.

It wasn’t plain sailing though as with all things Arsenal and on a night when most of our players were not at their best, we still did enough to bag the three points and hang onto the coat tails of Man United, who seem to be gathering an ominous head of steam with their unbeaten spell now stretched to 24 games. It is 14 games now left in the league this season and apart from an away tie against us at the Emirates and their visit to Stamford Bridge on March 1, it is hard seeing them lose anywhere else this season.

My biggest source of joy from the game was the never-say-die spirit that inspired the comeback from our boys. It was only the second time all season that we had won a game after falling behind. It is all well and good to score first which is something that comes naturally to us, but team character and fighting qualities are called upon when a team learns to fight its way back into a game from a position of defeat. Man United are masters of such situations and it may yet deliver another league title for them if we also do not pick up that attribute – and fast.

Last night, we showed we could.

Let’s rate our boys for the night after a difficult win eked out in more difficult circumstances 

Ratings: Szczesny 6, Koscielny 8, Djourou 7, Clichy 7, Sagna 7, Song 6, Wilshire 6, Diaby 6, Fabregas 7, Van Persie 7, Walcott 6, Arshavin 6, Bendtner 5