‘Public park’ - Ex-PL midfielder makes Everton stadium comparison after Arsenal defeat

Former Premier League midfielder turned pundit Jermaine Jenas compared Goodison Park to a ‘public park’ after Everton fell to a 1-0 defeat against Arsenal on Sunday.

Leandro Trossard’s second-half strike was enough to claim all three points. Sean Dyche’s team managed a shock victory last season in the same fixture, but the home side failed to land a glove on Mikel Arteta’s outfit this time.

Speaking on Match of the Day 2, former Newcastle midfielder Jenas critiqued Everton’s performance, claiming that they are missing a true goalscorer, as well as going on to say that they lacked that true Goodison atmosphere to threaten Arteta’s side.

“The biggest problem they’ve had over the course of those games is they can’t score goals” Jenas claimed. “Goals don’t come to Everton easily, I think if you go over the years when Leon [Osman] was playing and when I was going there with Newcastle and Tottenham, they always had a top striker scoring goals - whether it was [Louis] Saha, or [Romelu] Lukaku when he was there.

“They haven’t had that for a number of years now, and that’s one thing. Today, they lacked the biggest thing that they’ve always had which is the ability to get that crowd up. It was like a public park, I’ve never heard Goodison Park so quiet ever.”

Gary Neville commented something similar, claiming that fans are feeding off ‘scraps’ as opposed to years gone by where the whole stadium would be up in arms and on top of the opposition.

That’s now four defeats in five games for Dyche’s side who sit in 18th place, surrounded by the three promoted clubs and Wolves at the bottom of the table.

Although, it must be said that their season is not going to be defined by games against the top six clubs but it’s still another defeat and another game without a goal, which will worry Everton fans.