It was six years this week that Mikel Arteta, his appointment as Arsenal manager imminent, sat in the directors’ box at Everton to observe the size of the task ahead of him, as his side played out a moribund goalless draw.
Anniversaries bring a reckoning with them — in Arteta’s case, that perennial question of whether he really can take this grand old club to the title. It’s been 21 years now.
It was a new Everton stadium he arrived at this time but the challenges were very familiar: the brooding presence of his nemesis Manchester City, the shadow on Arsenal’s wall, back at the top of the league for the first time in 14 months after their victory over West Ham, and the perennial struggle for goals which has been a soundtrack to these past six years.