{"id":36879,"date":"2026-03-18T19:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/?p=36879"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:01:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:01:00","slug":"arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal can stretch their lead at the top of the Premier League to 10 points when they welcome Everton to the Emirates on Saturday evening, with Manchester City&#8217;s game at West Ham coming later in the day.<\/p>\n<p>The scheduling works in Arsenal favour for now, as City will have to wait and see what Mikel Arteta&#8217;s side do before kicking off. A win for the Gunners puts City under serious pressure, while an Everton point or three would hand Guardiola&#8217;s side a chance to close in.<\/p>\n<p>The last meeting between the two sides told a tight story. Arsenal edged past Everton 1-0 in their final game before the Christmas break, with Viktor Gyokeres converting a penalty in the 27th minute. The goal was the Swedish forward&#8217;s 10th of the season, cementing his place as Arsenal&#8217;s top scorer and sending the club to the top of the table at Christmas for the fifth time.<\/p>\n<p>But history offers a warning for Arsenal supporters. Each time the Gunners have led the league on Christmas Day, they have fallen short in the title race, finishing second in 2002\/03, 2022\/23 and 2023\/24, and third in 2007\/08.<\/p>\n<p>Arteta&#8217;s side will be eager to make sure this time the story ends differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal can stretch their lead at the top of the Premier League to 10 points when they welcome Everton to the Emirates on Saturday evening, with Manchester City&#8217;s game at West Ham coming later in the day. The scheduling works in Arsenal favour for now, as City will have to wait and see what Mikel Arteta&#8217;s side do before kicking off. A win for the Gunners puts City under serious pressure, while an Everton point or three would hand Guardiola&#8217;s side a chance to close in. The last meeting between the two sides told a tight story. Arsenal edged past Everton 1-0 in their final game before the Christmas break, with Viktor Gyokeres converting a penalty in the 27th minute. The goal was the Swedish forward&#8217;s 10th of the season, cementing his place as Arsenal&#8217;s top scorer and sending the club to the top of the table at Christmas for the fifth time. But history offers a warning for Arsenal supporters. Each time the Gunners have led the league on Christmas Day, they have fallen short in the title race, finishing second in 2002\/03, 2022\/23 and 2023\/24, and third in 2007\/08. Arteta&#8217;s side will be eager to make sure this time the story ends differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":36880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up - Matchplug Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up - Matchplug Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arsenal can stretch their lead at the top of the Premier League to 10 points when they welcome Everton to the Emirates on Saturday evening, with Manchester City&#8217;s game at West Ham coming later in the day. The scheduling works in Arsenal favour for now, as City will have to wait and see what Mikel Arteta&#8217;s side do before kicking off. A win for the Gunners puts City under serious pressure, while an Everton point or three would hand Guardiola&#8217;s side a chance to close in. The last meeting between the two sides told a tight story. Arsenal edged past Everton 1-0 in their final game before the Christmas break, with Viktor Gyokeres converting a penalty in the 27th minute. The goal was the Swedish forward&#8217;s 10th of the season, cementing his place as Arsenal&#8217;s top scorer and sending the club to the top of the table at Christmas for the fifth time. But history offers a warning for Arsenal supporters. Each time the Gunners have led the league on Christmas Day, they have fallen short in the title race, finishing second in 2002\/03, 2022\/23 and 2023\/24, and third in 2007\/08. Arteta&#8217;s side will be eager to make sure this time the story ends differently.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Matchplug Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-18T18:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/arsenal.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"New Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"New Admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"New Admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/279f0d60c763a644a86961a98c5a9dd1\"},\"headline\":\"Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-18T18:01:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\"},\"wordCount\":216,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/arsenal.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Football News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\",\"name\":\"Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up - Matchplug Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/arsenal.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-18T18:01:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/arsenal.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/arsenal.jpeg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"arsenal\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/arsenal-face-stern-everton-test-with-title-race-heating-up\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Arsenal Face Stern Everton Test With Title Race Heating Up\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matchplug.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Matchplug Blog\",\"description\":\"Matchplug is the best soccer prediction site connecting bettors with winning tips. 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