Arsenal smash Everton in six-goal thriller but miss out on CL | OneFootball

Arsenal have smashed Everton by the 5-1 scoreline to end their season in style, but it just wasn’t enough to secure Champions League football.

The Gunners went into today trailing Spurs by two points, knowing that they needed a minor miracle to leapfrog their rivals and steal fourth spot in the final fixture, and unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

While we were given a penalty to open the scoring just after 20 minutes of play when Alex Iwobi was spotted by VAR to have blocked Gabriel Martinelli’s strike with his arm. The Brazilian sent the keeper the wrong way, but unfortunately Tottenham had already opened the scoring in their outing.

Around five minutes later we doubled our lead when Bukayo Saka’s corner was headed on into the path of Eddie Nketiah in front of goal to guide it home, and around two minutes later Spurs had equalled our lead also.

Just as things looked to be going plain-sailing, we were rocked by some slack defending where Rob Holding seemingly left the ball to cross him in the box, and Donny Van De Beek was left with a tap-in from close range just on the cusp of half-time.

Thankfully we didn’t allow the late goal to shake us, as we came out with focus in the second-half to get back right back on track. We were putting our rivals under pressure, and we reaped the rewards from another corner. This time Saka was part of one straight off the training pitch when Cedric hid at the back of the box before running around towards the penalty spot to meet Saka’s pass, and the Portuguese smashed it home to regain our two-goal lead.

Just moments later it was 4-1, yet again after a corner, although the initial ball in was cleared, only for Soares to lay it forward into defender Gabriel Magalhaes who scored a neat goal with his feet for a change.

Martin Odegaard completed the rout with the sixth of the game and final goal of the of the season, while knowing that Tottenham had already won their game early on, meaning that we will settle for fifth place despite our efforts today.

One could say it was too-little too-late, but there is a lot of reason to be positive about the future, and what more can come from this side next season.

Patrick