Dyche dents Gunners' title charge! Winners, losers & ratings as Arsenal suffer damaging defeat at Everton

Arsenal slumped to only their second league defeat of the season as James Tarkowski’s second-half header gave Everton a deserved 1-0 win at Goodison Park.

The home side went into the game having lost eight of their last nine matches in all competitions but, inspired by new manager Sean Dyche, they outfought and outplayed the Premier League leaders on Merseyside.

With Everton packing the midfield, Arsenal just weren’t able to play with their usual fluency, as Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka and Martin Odegaard all struggled to get any sort of foothold in the game.

Mikel Arteta’s side were way off the pace as a result and when they did create chances, their finishing was unusually wayward, with Odegaard, Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka all wasteful at times.

But the visitors can’t put the result down to poor finishing. They were second best all afternoon and could easily have been behind before Tarkowski towered over Odegaard to head home Dwight McNeil’s corner on the hour mark.

The defeat - Arsenal’s third in a row at Goodison Park - could see their lead at the top of the table cut to just two points if Manchester City win at Tottenham on Sunday, although the Gunners would still have a game in hand.