Arsenal 1-0 Everton

Bendtner’s second half headed goal was enough for Arsenal to overcome Everton.

At the start of the game Arsenal were hoping to close to within a point of Chelsea, whilst Everton wanted to secure their fifth seed.

Those intentions didn’t seem to make much difference to the teams in the first half. Sure Arsenal had a lot of possession, and Everton looked relatively dangerous on the counter attack, but neither team looked like they were overly concerned about the result.

The best chance of the half fell to Adebayor in the final minutes, but he failed to capitalise on Eboue’s ball.
The second half started out much like the first, with Everton defending resolutely and Arsenal with an ‘end of season’ mindset.

Gilberto might have got the game going when Gilberto headed unchallenged over the bar, but the biggest cheer of the afternoon came when Jens Lehmann was brought on with 20 minutes to go. Wenger letting Lehmann say goodbye to the Arsenal fans.

With Lehmann, Traore was also brought on to play on the left and his pave seemed to lift the Gunners. With 15 minutes to go, Bendtner played the ball out to Traore on the left, Traore crossed perfectly into the box and Bendtner was there to power the ball into the net, his ninth goal of the season.

Everton tried to shake things up with their substitutions, but they seemed to lack a creative spark and Arsenal influenced by the impressive Song in the heart of the defence stayed strong and made it three wins on the bounce in the Premier League.