Sam Allardyce believes that his Everton side have a good chance of beating Arsenal on the weekend.
The Toffees are coming into this one after getting the better of Leicester City in midweek, with Theo Walcott opening his account as an Everton player with two goals.
Meanwhile, Arsenal were beaten comfortably by Swansea City in a 3-1 defeat at the Liberty Stadium.
As quoted by Sky Sports, Allardyce said that his side have the chance to ‘shut’ Arsenal out due to their lack of attacking force this season.
Arsenal’s attacking force has always been what you have to manage.
They haven’t scored as many goals as they have done in recent years at this stage of the season which gives us an opportunity to try and shut them out.
Although Arsenal were beaten away from home, the Everton manager knows that they cannot take it for granted as playing at home is a “different kettle of fish.”
I think that while it was away from home the other night, we studied the Swansea performance where Swansea managed to get a result against them but the Emirates is a different kettle of fish.
It’s about being able to nullify the strengths of Arsenal and then, I’ve always felt, that defensively they are weak because of the amount of players they commit forward.
If we’re clever enough to not give the ball away and break out from when we win the ball back with some quality forward passes and forward runs, we can play well and get good counter-attacking movement going.
When asked about Theo Walcott’s potential to impact the result tomorrow, Allardyce responded:
He’ll be doing the team-talk tomorrow I think. I think he’s looking forward to it. I’m sure he’ll get a very good reception when he goes back to the Emirates.
Everybody can understand why he’s left because now he’s got the opportunity to be one of the key players for Everton now and I think he saw that was going to be the case.
The Everton manager believes that Walcott can be a threat for them this season, and hopes that he can continue where he left off as he prepares to face his former club.
Last season he played 30 plus games and scored 19 goals, then all of a sudden this season that hasn’t been the case so he can be a pivotal figure for us going forward into the future.
Hopefully he can go and perform at the Emirates as well as he did on Wednesday night.
