Mikel Arteta has challenged our players to put in an improved performance against Everton to ensure they collect all three points on Wednesday night.
It was just over three weeks ago that we fell to just our second defeat of the season at Goodison Park in Sean Dyche’s first game in charge of the Toffees, on what proved to be a frustrating afternoon where nothing went quite right for us.
But now we have the chance to rectify that result and potentially move five points clear at the top of the table, however Mikel is adamant that only a much better display than the one on Merseyside will be enough to achieve that aim.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, he said: “It’s a case of doing things better than we did when we played them a few weeks ago and earning the right to win the game. Hopefully tomorrow we will play much better than we did that day.
“It’s like with any opponent. We showed [the players] what they do, what they are about, what we expect to do to try to beat them and nothing different.
“With Sean, it’s quite clear what he’s done and where the success they’ve had is coming from. Tomorrow we’ll prepare the game in an appropriate and similar way [to the away match].”
Since our last encounter, Dyche has had three further games in the dugout and Mikel feels that having a bit more analysis on the way he is trying to get Everton to play may help, plus believes the backing of the Emirates crowd will also prove to be a different factor to the game at the start of February.
Giving an insight into his preparation, he added: “We have to look at certain matches, what they do and try to get the right tactics to beat them - and as well the same mentality and expectation of what we demand in the game.
“We can’t control how the opponents are feeling or how they prepare for the games. What we have to do is tomorrow in front of our crowd go full tilt, go to win the game, play well and compete really well against this team.
“Tomorrow we expect to have the same support because with that, we’re going to be closer to winning the game for sure.”
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