Arsenal 2-0 Everton: Gabriel Jesus scores again in comfortable pre-season win
First-half goals from Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka gave Arsenal a 2-0 pre-season victory over Everton in Baltimore on Sunday.
The two Premier League sides are both currently on tour in the United States, and they entertained a near-40,000 crowd at the M&T Bank Stadium.
New signing Jesus opened the scoring just after the half-hour mark and three minutes later the Brazilian provided the assist for Saka to score Arsenal's second.
The Gunners started the game strongly and Jesus forced a decent save out of Jordan Pickford early on.
Everton did threaten on the counter at times, and Matt Turner had to be alert to stop Niels Nkounkou's shot before Cedric Soares scrambled the ball clear.
Eventually, Arsenal's sustained pressure paid off. Their opener came from a corner, which went all the way through to Gabriel Jesus at the back post. The forward had time to control it and pick his spot past Pickford to make it 1-0.
It did not take long for Arsenal to double their advantage. Again, Jesus was involved, driving with the ball from deep before picking out Saka with a cute pass which provided him with the simplest of finishes.
Both managers rung the changes at half-time, with Frank Lampard afforded playing time to summer signing James Tarkowski, while Mikel Arteta turned to the likes of Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Hector Bellerin.
Arsenal almost gifted Everton a route back into the game a few minutes after the restart, with some sloppy passing allowing Salomon Rondon to fire off a shot from inside the Gunners' half which Turner was equal to.
This set the tone for an improved second-half display from the Toffees, although chances were at a premium for both sides.
Speaking after the game Arteta revealed that he was pleased with the application of his players in the tough conditions.
"Good. Two really different halves. I think the first half really good, really intense, (we) understood where the spaces were and the execution was really good," he said.
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"We were a threat all the time and had a lot of bodies attacking, couterpress was top, I really liked it. Second half we started a bit sloppy.
"We changed formation and we had too many giveaways giving them control of the match. The last 20 minutes we changed again and I think we got control again.
"Overall boys are doing what they’re doing in training. They’ve trained really well, with a really high intensity in every session and you can see that in the way they play."