Rampant Arsenal win 6-1 at Everton

Aug 15, 2009 - 7:44 PM By GEOFF McALLISTER STATS European Football Writer=

LONDON (SE) - Arsene Wenger claimed Arsenal's sensational 6-1 win at Everton on Saturday justified his decision to reject Real Madrid.

Wenger turned down the opportunity to take charge of the Spanish giants over the summer to continue his quest to guide Arsenal to a first trophy in five years.

Cesc Fabregas' sublime double and strikes from debutant Thomas Vermalean, Denilson, William Gallas and substitute Eduardo got the Gunners' Premier League title bid off to a dream start.

Wenger said: "I am deeply linked with this club and with the team. It is four years work behind that and I want to help this team and these players to be successful.

"Everything went for us today. We were always in charge and dictated the game.

"We had a very good game. The cohesion, the attitude, the team spirit and the desire to play together were among the many positive ingredients in our game."

Denilson opened the scoring on 26 minutes with a superb 25-yard strike after being picked out by Fabregas.

Dutchman Vermaelen doubled the lead eight minutes before half time with a towering back post header from Robin Van Persie's free kick.

Another Van Persie free kick was nodded in by Gallas four minutes later before two quick fire strikes from Fabregas after fine breakaway moves in the 48th and 69th minutes put the game out of Everton's reach.

Croatian Eduardo notched his first league goal since his horror double broken leg 18 months ago two minutes from time before Louis Saha's stoppage time consolation saved last season FA Cup finalists Everton from their worst ever home defeat.

Man of the match Fabregas insisted Arsenal will not allow themselves to get carried away by the victory.

Fabregas said: "We wanted to win. For us this is a good start

"We are not going to get too carried away by this result and we know we are not going to win 6-1 every week.

"We have to keep it real because it is just one game, the first for the title race and we have to keep going. There are 37 more matches to go and we will see where we are at the end."

Fabregas dedicated the victory to former Spain under-21 teammate Dani Jarque after the Espanyol captain died of a heart attack last week.

Midfielder Fabregas, who unveiled an Arsenal shirt with Jarque's name on it after scoring his second, said: "It is terrible news. I played with him during two years in the under-21s. It was so shocking. Today was for him."

Everton manager David Moyes said: "It was a real disappointment on the opening day of the season. I cannot pick any positives out of that.

"I did not think we played that badly in the first half but lost two diabolical goals from set pieces and in the second half we did not perform at all.

"We had a team out that finished fifth in the Premier League last season and almost the same team that started the FA Cup final so it should have been a much better performance."