Everton Manager, Roberto Martinez, has said that after his team’s loss to Crystal Palace on Wednesday, he expects Arsenal to also drop points as the league hits its final round of matches.
After going down 3-2 to relegation strugglers, Crystal Palace in a rescheduled English Premier League match played at Goodison Park, the Everton manager’s hope to overtake the Gunners in the race for top 4 suffered a major setback.
Everton only needed to win in order to return to 4th place, after Arsenal had earlier on Tuesday defeated Westham United 3-1, but things went bad for the Blues right from the first half as they were a goal down under 25 minutes.
While speaking after the match, the Spaniards said that he expects the Gunners to drop points along the way: “We have 12 points to play for, we are close to fourth place and we are still in a good position.
“I don’t think Arsenal will take maximum points from their remaining games.
“If you looked at the start of the season, it’s a magnificent position.
“The way we finished the second half gives me great optimism we can finish the season strongly.”
The match against Crystal palace was seen as one of Everton’s best opportunities to earn points as they are still to play Man City and Man United; while Arsenal on the other hand have supposedly more winnable games with matches against Hull City and Newcastle.
“The result is a hurtful one because of the expectation that we had and the desire that we brought into the game.
“In the first half we played with a bit of wanting to win so much that we forgot about simple basics. In the second half, it was completely different”, said Martinez.