‘He’s pointless’ – Arsenal fans all say the same about Mikel Arteta’s ‘howler’ vs Everton
Mikel Arteta waited far too long to make key substitutions during Arsenal’s extremely narrow win over Everton on Saturday.
Man City had beaten West Ham 3-0 earlier on 20 December to move top of the Premier League table, so it was imperative that the Gunners sealed all three points at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Before the 2025-26 campaign kicked off, Arteta had been warned that trophies were a must-win to keep his job in North London. The Premier League and Champions League are both possible this term.
However, Pep Guardiola will certainly have something to say about that, and many of the travelling supporters felt as though Arteta tried his very best to throw away a victory on Merseyside.
Arsenal fans wanted Martin Odegaard replaced by Eberechi Eze
Martin Odegaard has been far from his best in the last 12 months, but with the likes of Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka, and Declan Rice picking up the pieces, it has been swept under the rug.
However, with the Norwegian a passenger right up until the 88th minute, and Eze left on the bench altogether, fans were absolutely fuming with Arteta’s decisions against the Toffees.
As well as labelling the decision a “howler”, multiple supporters jumped on the bandwagon of making Odegaard the scapegoat, and those voices would have been even worse had Everton scored a late equaliser.
- @CarlosZZ___: “Odegaard been absolutely rubbish again, but Arteta won’t take him off. And we have Eze and Nwaneri.”
- @cashmoneyk11: “Bro, why is Odegaard still on the pitch? Bring on Eze.”
- @TheBowMonster: “If Odegaard isn’t controlling the game for us, he’s pointless. Get Eze on.”
Odegaard’s stats against Everton should be a warning sign to Mikel Arteta
While the attacking midfielder did create a total of four chances at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, there were very few positive moments that stuck out to the supporters [FotMob].
The Gunners were forced to defend for large parts of the game, with David Moyes‘ side wanting at least a point from their home game, but it was not to be, even despite Odegaard’s invisibility.
He failed to win a single tackle, lost 100 per cent of his ground duels, was dribbled past once, and he even committed one foul, with supporters only getting more and more frustrated by his performance.
Luckily for Arteta, it did not impact the final score, or at least it didn’t lead to a Toffees’ equaliser, but anything could have happened after the Gunners failed to see out the game properly.
Moyes’ side had chances, and had any of those been taken, Man City would be top of the league heading into Christmas.