Arsenal are aiming to end the season on a high – and by some miracle qualify for the Champions League – when they welcome Everton to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon. With that said, facing a Toffees side who secured their Premier League survival on Thursday night will make things interesting in North London as Frank Lampard is set to ring the changes now that the pressure is off. Although, he insists his players will be going all out for the win.
Frank Lampard said: “I will relax more, and I don’t mean that in a light-hearted way because I understand Arsenal and Tottenham are in a battle, and we’ll go and do our absolute best to approach the game in the right way. At the same time, we’ve not had that luxury – others have, and we saw that playing against Brentford and then again against Palace in the first half. There’s something nice about ‘relaxing’. Since my first day here, we’ve not had chance to do that, and maybe that’s the Premier League, but our situation also added to that. It’ll be nice for the players to have that feeling. A couple of players who maybe haven’t had opportunities will get opportunities, but we’ll be going full pelt to try to get the right result.”
It remains to be seen who Lampard will hand opportunities to at the Emirates, but the Liverpool Echo have speculated that the likes of Asmir Begovic, Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek could start whilst Jarrad Branthwaite is available again after serving his one-game ban against Crystal Palace.