Arsenal 1 - 0 Everton: One-nil to the Arsenal.

On a day of celebration for Arsenal, Everton were likely to be stern opposition regardless of their rather poor form at the moment. The game played out that way, as the Toffee's typically adopted a pragmatic approach and wasn't too ambitious in the game.

In saying that, if Arsenal took their opportunities they could have won this game by three or four goals. Arteta played in Walcott but he opted to square it to one of the two runners up with him. Unfortunately, Gervinho was put off by the defender and failed to control the pass. Then in a similar way, Gervinho squared it to van Persie, but the Dutchman was offside. Arguments could be made on both ocassions that Walcott and Gervinho should've gone for goal themselves, but at the same time if those moves culminated in goals we'd be praising their unselfish play.

There were a couple more chances. Gervinho failed to score when he was one-on-one with Howard, and Ramsey's touch failed him when he was in front of goal, though he did well to recover the situation and almost score afterwards.

Wastefulness summed up our first half. The defending was fine, the passing was very good and we created opportunities, but didn't take them.

You'd have thought that in the second half, the team would be trying to force the issue and win the game, but it didn't really happen that way. Everton decided to show more ambition and had more of the ball. We didn't create enough; Walcott was involved a lot, but he was lacking in end product and Gervinho and van Persie were hardly involved in the game.

As the old cliche goes, a moment of quality was needed to decide the game and that's what we got. Song clipped a lovely ball over the top and van Persie smashed in an excellent volley. He had been marked out of the game, but just like that, he pops up and scores a brilliant goal.

There were one or two hairy moments towards the end, but we got the win.

Player Ratings
Wojciech Szczesny - 7. He didn't have to make many saves, if any, but when it came to commanding his area he was very good.

Per Mertesacker - 6. Defended well and made some good blocks and interceptions.

Laurent Koscielny - 7. Very good performance.

Johan Djourou - 6. Was decent enough, though always looks a bit clumsy at right back.

Thomas Vermaelen - 7. Looked very comfortable at left back and had Coleman in his back pocket.

Alex Song - 7. I'm not even surprised that he produced that pass. He can do that sort of stuff, and if he ever finds consistency in that sort of play he'd be such a good player.

Mikel Arteta - 6. Not one of his best games, but kept it tidy. Could've easily had an assist, though.

Aaron Ramsey - 6. Not very effective today, but decent performance nonetheless.

Theo Walcott - 6. Was heavily involved, but not as clinical in the final third as he could've been.

Gervinho - 6. Hardly involved, though some sharper finsihing may have resulted in a couple of goals for him.

Robin van Persie - 7. Was also rarely involved, but scored an exceptional goal to win the game.

----------------------

Ignasi Miquel - n/a
Emmanuel Frimpong - n/a
Tomas Rosicky - n/a

Updated the first post with a lazy effort. But meh.

And we're up to fourth.

Of course, Chelsea will go above us if they beat City on Monday but hey, let's enjoy it while it lasts.

Still two behind Spurs, who have two games in hand, though.