There is plenty of history between Arsenal and Everton. They are two of English football’s great old institutions and have met more often in the top flight than almost any other pairing. Yet the Emirates chapter of the rivalry has been remarkably one-sided.
Across the first 20 Premier League meetings between the clubs at the stadium, Arsenal won 14. Everton won once.
That single statistic does a rather efficient job of explaining the relationship.
Everton have occasionally frustrated Arsenal, sometimes seriously. They have produced draws, taken unexpected leads and, on one particularly strange evening in 2021, finally escaped with all three points. More commonly, however, a trip to the Emirates has ended with Everton attempting to work out precisely when the afternoon got away from them.
Here is how the story developed.
Everton’s Premier League Record at Emirates Stadium
From Arsenal’s first season at the Emirates in 2006/07 through to the 2025/26 campaign, Everton played 20 Premier League matches at the stadium.
| Record | Total |
|---|---|
| Matches | 20 |
| Arsenal wins | 14 |
| Draws | 5 |
| Everton wins | 1 |
| Arsenal goals | 41 |
| Everton goals | 14 |
| Arsenal goals per game | 2.05 |
| Everton goals per game | 0.70 |
| Arsenal clean sheets | 8 |
| Everton’s biggest defeat | 5-1 |
| Everton’s only league win | 1-0, 2021 |
The aggregate score of 41-14 to Arsenal is perhaps the most revealing figure.
Everton have conceded almost three times as many goals as they have scored at the ground. Arsenal have averaged just over two goals per meeting, while Everton have averaged 0.7.
There has also been an FA Cup meeting. Arsenal beat Everton 4-1 in the 2014 quarter-final, making the overall competitive picture at the Emirates even more favourable to the Gunners.
Every Everton Premier League Visit to the Emirates
| Season | Result |
| 2006/07 | Arsenal 1-1 Everton |
| 2007/08 | Arsenal 1-0 Everton |
| 2008/09 | Arsenal 3-1 Everton |
| 2009/10 | Arsenal 2-2 Everton |
| 2010/11 | Arsenal 2-1 Everton |
| 2011/12 | Arsenal 1-0 Everton |
| 2012/13 | Arsenal 0-0 Everton |
| 2013/14 | Arsenal 1-1 Everton |
| 2014/15 | Arsenal 2-0 Everton |
| 2015/16 | Arsenal 2-1 Everton |
| 2016/17 | Arsenal 3-1 Everton |
| 2017/18 | Arsenal 5-1 Everton |
| 2018/19 | Arsenal 2-0 Everton |
| 2019/20 | Arsenal 3-2 Everton |
| 2020/21 | Arsenal 0-1 Everton |
| 2021/22 | Arsenal 5-1 Everton |
| 2022/23 | Arsenal 4-0 Everton |
| 2023/24 | Arsenal 2-1 Everton |
| 2024/25 | Arsenal 0-0 Everton |
| 2025/26 | Arsenal 2-0 Everton |
What stands out is not simply the number of Arsenal victories. It is Everton’s inability to turn competitive performances into wins.
The Toffees drew four of their first eight Premier League visits. At that point, the Emirates was difficult territory rather than completely hostile territory.
Then the balance shifted heavily towards Arsenal.
2006: Everton Spoil the Early Emirates Mood
Everton’s first Premier League visit to the Emirates came on 28 October 2006.
The stadium itself was only a few months old. Arsenal were still becoming accustomed to their enormous new home and Everton took advantage, earning a 1-1 draw.
It established what became Everton’s most successful formula in north London: stay organised, concede territory where necessary and make Arsenal work for everything.
There have been afternoons when Everton tried to play Arsenal more openly at the Emirates.
Most of those are not remembered fondly on Merseyside.
2009/10: Everton Come Close
One of Everton’s strongest early performances came in January 2010.
Leon Osman put the visitors ahead before Denilson equalised. Steven Pienaar then produced one of the finest Everton goals scored at the Emirates, breaking forward and delicately lifting his finish beyond Manuel Almunia.
Everton were heading towards a notable victory until Tomas Rosicky’s deflected late effort rescued Arsenal.
Arsenal 2-2 Everton.
For Everton supporters, this was one of those matches that felt considerably less satisfying at full time than a draw at Arsenal normally should.
The opportunity had been there.
2011: Controversy and an Arsenal Comeback
The February 2011 meeting produced considerably more aggravation.
Louis Saha gave Everton the lead with a goal Arsenal believed should have been ruled out for offside. Arsenal’s own contemporary match report described the goal as highly controversial.
Everton then attempted to protect the advantage against an Arsenal side chasing Manchester United in the title race.
They held out until the 70th minute.
Andrey Arshavin equalised before Laurent Koscielny headed Arsenal ahead five minutes later.
Arsenal 2-1 Everton.
It became an early example of a recurring problem for Everton at this ground. Keeping Arsenal quiet for an hour was one thing. Keeping them quiet for 90 minutes was quite another.
2013/14: Everton Show Their Quality
The Everton side Roberto Martínez brought to the Emirates in December 2013 was different.
They were confident, technically accomplished and prepared to play.
Mesut Özil appeared to have won the match for Arsenal with an 80th-minute goal, only for Gerard Deulofeu to produce a superb equaliser four minutes later.
The 1-1 draw felt deserved.
Everton eventually finished fifth that season with 72 points, and their performance in north London showed why. This was not a team simply trying to survive an away fixture against Arsenal.
They looked capable of hurting them.
2014: Arsenal End Everton’s FA Cup Run
Three months later, the clubs returned to the Emirates for an FA Cup quarter-final.
This time there was no draw.
Arsenal won 4-1.
Everton briefly threatened to make a contest of it when Romelu Lukaku cancelled out Mesut Özil’s opener, but Arsenal eventually pulled away.
The scoreline was harsh on Everton for portions of the game, but the final stages became increasingly comfortable for Arsenal.
The Gunners went on to win the FA Cup, ending their nine-year wait for a major trophy.
For Everton, it remains another entry in the rather thick folder marked Things That Went Wrong at the Emirates.
2017: Arsenal Win but Miss the Champions League
The final day of the 2016/17 season produced a strange afternoon.
Arsenal needed victory while hoping Liverpool would slip up in the race for Champions League qualification.
Héctor Bellerín put Arsenal ahead before Laurent Koscielny was sent off. Alexis Sánchez doubled the lead despite the numerical disadvantage.
Romelu Lukaku converted a penalty for Everton, but Aaron Ramsey’s superb late strike completed a 3-1 Arsenal victory.
It was not enough.
Liverpool won their match and Arsenal finished outside the Champions League places.
Everton had lost, Arsenal had won, and somehow nobody seemed particularly delighted.
Football can be efficient like that.
2018: Aubameyang’s Home Debut and a 5-1 Hammering
Everton’s February 2018 visit was considerably less complicated.
Arsenal demolished them.
Aaron Ramsey scored a hat-trick. Laurent Koscielny added another and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored on his Arsenal debut.
By half-time it was 4-0.
Everton eventually lost 5-1.
What made the defeat particularly uncomfortable was the ease with which Arsenal moved through Everton’s defensive structure. Henrikh Mkhitaryan supplied three assists and Arsenal’s attacking players repeatedly found space between Everton’s midfield and defence.
It remains one of the clearest examples of what could happen when Everton’s disciplined approach at the Emirates disappeared.
2020: Five Goals and Arteta Against Ancelotti
The February 2020 meeting now feels like a little time capsule.
Mikel Arteta was rebuilding Arsenal. Carlo Ancelotti was attempting something similar at Everton.
Everton scored after less than a minute through Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Eddie Nketiah equalised and Aubameyang put Arsenal ahead, only for Richarlison to make it 2-2 before half-time.
Aubameyang scored again immediately after the restart.
Arsenal 3-2 Everton.
There were periods when Everton looked dangerous, particularly when attacking an Arsenal defence that was still far from secure. Yet again, though, Arsenal possessed the greater cutting edge.
2021: Everton Finally Win at the Emirates
Then came the exception.
On 23 April 2021, Everton finally won a Premier League match at Emirates Stadium.
And naturally, after years of trying, the decisive goal was an Arsenal own goal.
Richarlison drove the ball across the area and goalkeeper Bernd Leno made a dreadful mistake, allowing it through his hands and into the net.
Arsenal 0-1 Everton.
There were no travelling supporters present because of COVID-19 restrictions.
So Everton waited 15 years to win a league match at the Emirates and their fans were not allowed inside to see it.
If you wanted to design an Everton statistic in a laboratory, you would struggle to improve upon that.
The victory was significant nonetheless. Carlo Ancelotti’s side completed a league double over Arsenal that season and briefly appeared capable of challenging for European qualification.
2022: Arsenal Respond with Five
Everton’s next trip produced the opposite experience.
By the final day of the 2021/22 season, Frank Lampard’s side had already secured Premier League survival after a dramatic victory over Crystal Palace.
Arsenal still had an outside chance of qualifying for the Champions League.
The difference in motivation showed.
Arsenal won 5-1, with Gabriel Martinelli, Eddie Nketiah, Cédric Soares, Gabriel Magalhães and Martin Ødegaard scoring.
It was Everton’s joint-heaviest Premier League defeat at the Emirates.
2023: Arteta’s Arsenal Take Control
Everton had beaten Arsenal 1-0 at Goodison Park in Sean Dyche’s first game in charge in February 2023.
The return match one month later was rather different.
Arsenal won 4-0.
Bukayo Saka opened the scoring before Gabriel Martinelli struck either side of an Ødegaard goal.
This was Arsenal during the first serious title challenge of the Arteta era, and the tactical contrast was obvious.
Everton attempted to remain compact and restrict space centrally. Arsenal’s ability to switch play, isolate defenders and attack the width of the penalty area gradually dismantled the plan.
Once the first goal arrived, Everton had little answer.
2024: Arsenal Win but Lose the Title
Perhaps the most emotionally unusual Arsenal-Everton match at the Emirates arrived on 19 May 2024.
It was the final day of the season.
Arsenal still had a chance of winning the Premier League, but Manchester City controlled their own destiny against West Ham.
Everton took the lead through Idrissa Gueye’s deflected free kick.
Takehiro Tomiyasu equalised before Kai Havertz scored an 89th-minute winner.
Arsenal 2-1 Everton.
Normally, an 89th-minute winner on the final day would have sent the stadium into delirium.
Instead, news from Manchester had already made the situation clear. City won 3-1 and became champions.
Arsenal finished on 89 points.
Everton had lost the match, but in a peculiar way they had been supporting actors in one of the defining afternoons of the Arteta era.
2024/25: Everton Shut Arsenal Out
The following meeting was almost the complete opposite.
Everton held Arsenal to a 0-0 draw in December 2024.
There was nothing spectacular about Everton’s attacking contribution. That was hardly the point.
They frustrated Arsenal, defended their penalty area and prevented the home side from converting territorial superiority into goals.
For Everton, this is historically the approach that has worked best at the Emirates.
Trying to outgun Arsenal has usually ended badly. Making the game ugly, narrow and irritating has produced considerably better results.
2026: Arsenal Leave It Very Late
The Premier League meeting on 14 March 2026 looked destined to finish goalless.
Everton resisted until the 89th minute before Viktor Gyökeres finally broke the deadlock. Max Dowman added another deep into stoppage time to complete a 2-0 Arsenal victory.
The official attendance was 60,176. Arsenal’s victory extended their unbeaten Premier League run against Everton to seven matches, with five wins during that sequence.
It was another example of the problem Everton have repeatedly encountered here.
Defending well for 80 minutes does not appear anywhere on the league table.
Why Have Everton Struggled So Much at the Emirates?
The numbers are too substantial to dismiss as coincidence.
Arsenal’s 14 wins from the first 20 Emirates league meetings represent a 70 per cent win rate for the home side.
Everton’s win rate is 5 per cent.
There are several reasons.
First, Arsenal have generally been the stronger side across the Emirates era. Even during relatively weaker Arsenal periods, Everton were often operating with fewer financial resources and less squad depth.
The stylistic match-up has mattered too.
Everton teams under David Moyes, Roberto Martínez, Ronald Koeman, Carlo Ancelotti and Sean Dyche have approached Arsenal in very different ways. Yet the most successful performances tended to share one characteristic: Everton denied Arsenal space rather than trying to dominate possession.
The 0-0 draws in 2013 and 2024 are useful examples.
Once Everton have been forced to chase matches, the Emirates has frequently become a deeply unpleasant place for them.
Everton’s Scoring Problem in North London
Everton scored only 14 goals in their first 20 Premier League visits to Emirates Stadium.
More tellingly, they failed to score in eight of those matches.
The distribution is revealing.
| Everton goals scored | Matches |
| 0 goals | 8 |
| 1 goal | 10 |
| 2 goals | 2 |
| 3 or more | 0 |
Everton have never scored three Premier League goals in a match at the Emirates.
Their attacking ceiling has been remarkably low.
Even when Everton have played well, they have rarely built the kind of two or three-goal cushion that allows an away team to survive an Arsenal response.
Arsenal’s Heavy Wins
Everton have suffered several particularly damaging afternoons.
Arsenal 5-1 Everton, 2018
Ramsey’s hat-trick and Aubameyang’s debut goal turned this into one of Everton’s worst Emirates performances.
Arsenal 5-1 Everton, 2022
Five different Arsenal scorers completed another miserable final-day visit.
Arsenal 4-0 Everton, 2023
Everton had beaten Arsenal only weeks earlier. The response in north London was emphatic.
Add the 4-1 FA Cup defeat in 2014 and a pattern becomes fairly difficult to ignore.
When Arsenal have opened Everton up at the Emirates, they have occasionally done so with enthusiasm bordering on the impolite.
The Emirates Compared with Goodison Park
This is where the rivalry becomes more interesting.
Everton’s difficulties at the Emirates do not mean Arsenal have always enjoyed playing Everton.
Goodison Park became a particularly awkward destination for Arsenal.
Everton beat them there in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023, while other visits became physically demanding, low-scoring contests. Arsenal’s historical dominance of the fixture was much less obvious on Merseyside.
That contrast says something about home advantage, but also about Everton.
At Goodison, the crowd could turn an Arsenal match into an emotional, aggressive contest. Everton could press, tackle and attack with the stadium behind them.
At the Emirates, they were usually required to absorb Arsenal pressure instead.
The same fixture could feel like an entirely different sport depending on which train station you got off at.
The Fan Perspective
There is something slightly deceptive about Arsenal against Everton at the Emirates.
Looking through the results makes it appear routine. Watching many of the matches did not.
Everton have often been irritatingly difficult opponents. They have defended deep, slowed Arsenal’s rhythm and produced enough moments on the counterattack to keep the crowd nervous.
But the psychological expectation has changed.
In the early Emirates years, Everton arriving in north London felt like a genuinely awkward fixture. By the later Wenger years and especially under Arteta, the expectation increasingly became that Arsenal should win.
That is quite a shift.
A 1-1 draw in 2006 was respectable for Everton.
A 0-0 draw in 2024 felt like Arsenal had dropped two points.
Same clubs, same stadium, completely different expectations.
The Best Everton Performance at the Emirates
There are several candidates.
The 2-2 draw in 2010 featured Everton twice taking the lead. The 1-1 performance under Martínez in 2013 demonstrated genuine ambition and technical quality. The defensive display in 2024 was impressive in a completely different way.
But the obvious answer remains the 1-0 victory in April 2021.
It has to.
It remains Everton’s only Premier League victory at the Emirates from their first 20 attempts.
The manner of the winner was hardly majestic. Nobody will be commissioning an oil painting of Bernd Leno fumbling the ball into his own net.
Everton supporters probably do not care.
What the Numbers Tell Us
The Emirates era has transformed this particular part of the Arsenal-Everton rivalry.
Across the first 20 Premier League meetings at the stadium:
- Arsenal took 47 points from a possible 60
- Everton took 8 points from a possible 60
- Arsenal won 70 per cent of the matches
- Everton won 5 per cent
- Arsenal outscored Everton 41-14
- Everton failed to score in 40 per cent of their visits
- Arsenal scored at least four goals on three occasions
- Everton never scored more than twice
That is sustained dominance rather than a favourable run.
Perhaps the strangest part is that Everton have frequently been much more troublesome for Arsenal elsewhere. Goodison Park repeatedly caused Arsenal problems during periods when Everton could barely buy a result at the Emirates.
Football rivalries are rarely symmetrical.
This one certainly isn’t.
Everton at Emirates Stadium: The Verdict
Everton’s history at Emirates Stadium is a story of stubborn resistance punctuated by some fairly brutal Arsenal victories.
There have been good Everton performances. There have been memorable goals. There have been draws that felt like victories and defeats that were closer than the scoreline suggests.
There has also been one actual victory.
One.
Across two decades.
For Arsenal supporters, Everton at home has developed into a fixture carrying an expectation of three points. For Everton supporters, the Emirates has represented one of the more stubborn entries on the Premier League travel calendar.
That could change. Football has an amusing habit of eventually humiliating anyone confident enough to declare a pattern permanent.
But after the first 20 Premier League meetings at the Emirates, the numbers are difficult to argue with.
Arsenal have owned this fixture in north London.
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