Everton Target as Festival Period Approaches, Arsenal Without Martin Zubimendi

JAKARTA - Arsenal lost one of their mainstay pillars, Martin Zubimendi, during the festival period in the English League. The period with the schedule is actually very busy when other leagues in Europe enter the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The festival period when the English teams still compete on Christmas and New Year's Day. Even though the winter is marked by snow, the match still takes place. Even the match a day after Christmas or Boxing Day is the most anticipated.

Boxing Day is a day of exchanging gifts (boxes) that has become a tradition of the British people. They visit friends, neighbors or relatives to give and receive gifts.

Well, English football clubs also want to give a victory gift to supporters when playing. The right gift is certainly when the match is held on Boxing Day. Not only the match on December 26 but also before and after it until the New Year will roll.

Despite criticism from players and managers outside of England for not being able to take Christmas and New Year's off, the league's operators have maintained the tradition.

Even criticism that the matches in the festival period were accused of draining the energy of local players so that those who strengthened the England national team were exhausted when playing in the World Cup and the European Cup, but the league still rolled on the schedule.

This makes teams have no choice but to prepare to play matches with a busy schedule. Arsenal, who lead the English Premier League standings, are quite optimistic about playing that period.

The reason is that a number of players, Declan Rice, William Saliba, Jurrien Timber and Leandro Trossard have returned to play. They are part of the Gunners squad when defeating Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 which confirmed their position at the top with 36 points. Two points ahead of Manchester City who are in second place.

Arsenal themselves will play seven matches in 22 days. Mikel Arteta's team started by facing host Everton in the Premier League at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, Sunday, December 21, 2025 WIB.

Even though playing at the opponent's home, Arteta still targets victory to secure the position at the top and keep the distance with Man City.

Only three days later, the North London club met Crystal Palace in the London Derby in the quarter-finals of the English League Cup. P

there is a match a day before New Year, Martin Odegaard et al. face Aston Villa. They also host Liverpool in a big match in the Premier League on January 9, 2026 WIB. Arsenal's festival period ends with a match against Portsmouth in the FA Cup on January 11, 2026.

In the middle of the match with a busy schedule, Arsenal lost Zubimendi, the mainstay midfielder who had never been absent. Since being recruited from Real Sociedad at the start of this season, Zubimendi has played 15 times out of 16 matches in the domestic competition.

The Spain national team midfielder has played five times out of six matches in the Champions League. He only missed one game against Slavia Prague due to a playing ban.

Zubimendi suffered an injury against Wolves which led to him being pulled off in the 58th minute. He also did not train so it is estimated that he will be absent against Everton.

Zubimendi's injury is not serious, but Arteta chose to keep his players so that they can appear in good condition in the next match. Moreover, this is Zubimendi's debut in the festival period and Arteta doesn't want him to get a more serious injury when he is forced to appear.

Apart from Zubimendi, defender Ben Whites was the next player to miss out due to injury. Arteta himself regretted White's absence because he had just recovered from a knee injury.

"This is obviously bad news. It looks like he has a hamstring. But we soon know the certainty of the injury he suffered. It's a shame because he missed minutes of play because he had a knee injury before," said Arteta.

Arsenal are still missing defender Gabriel Magalhaes who has not recovered from injury and Christhian Mosquera. However, midfielder Riccardo Calafiori is already able to play again.

The good news is that forward Kai Havertz has recovered from injury and is back training. Only, Arteta is not in a hurry to bring down the German national team striker. However, Havertz's recovery makes the front line more stable.