The best that could be said of this anticlimactic affair is that Everton and Arsenal have to be happy with a point apiece after playing so poorly. Duncan Ferguson claimed he wanted to be tucking into Christmas dinner with another three points in the bag, but as Everton games under their colourful caretaker-manager go, this was quiet. As openings of new eras go, with Carlo Ancelotti and Mikel Arteta watching from the stands, it was worryingly underwhelming.

Everton saved one of their most insipid performances of a below average season for their freshly arrived new manager, while Arsenal gave an adequate account of themselves but no more, Freddie Ljungberg’s challenging selection giving Arteta plenty to think about.

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The bad news for Ancelotti is that his new side looked as if they could play until Boxing Day without scoring and though credit is due to a callow Arsenal team for showing resilience, the Italian must already be concerned about how Everton might perform against Premier League opponents not quite as keen to showcase their U23 talent.

“It was a point and a clean sheet, we haven’t had too many of those,” Ferguson said. “I told Freddie just before the end I wanted the whistle to go, because I think we were both happy with a point.”

Ljungberg said he had selected a side to win the game, but also to reward effort and determination in training. “We fought hard and I wanted to reward the players who make runs and do the dirty things,” the Arsenal interim manager said, before confirming the injured Mesut Özil would have been left out anyway after his petulant display last week.

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A scrappy and forgettable first half passed without a shot on target, both teams trying hard to impress the onlookers in the posh seats but failing to come up with any attacking impetus or produce any moments of quality. Everton were particularly disappointing, given that this was Ferguson’s last game in charge and Arsenal had obligingly fielded such an inexperienced side.

When Alex Iwobi departed injured after 11 minutes without managing to make any impression on his old club, Ferguson sent Cenk Tosun on in his place and moved Richarlison to the wing. It was a bold attacking statement but it meant Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fabian Delph became too detached from the front three, with the former spending much of his time playing even deeper than the latter.

Considering the levels of excitement reached here in the past couple of weeks it was dismally poor fare for the home side to serve up to the most illustrious manager in the club’s history and the hope expressed in several half-time conversations was that Everton had not been reckless enough to allow any sort of cooling-off period in Ancelotti’s contract.

At least the second half turned out to be a little more eventful, even if it was the visitors who most visibly perked up, possibly realising they were not about to rattled by a stadium at fever pitch after all.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mikel Arteta (top centre) goes to take his seat as Carlo Ancelotti (bottom centre) stands between Everton’s chairman, Bill Kenwright, and majority owner, Farhad Moshiri. Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/Shutterstock

Jordan Pickford produced a splendid reaction save to keep out a goalbound effort from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang immediately after the interval, and a couple of minutes later Lucas Torreira opened up the Everton defence on the left only to pick the wrong option in passing to the Arsenal captain when others were better placed to shoot.

Everton took more than an hour to cause Arsenal any real concern, when Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison and Tosun all had a go from inside the area before the ball was cleared for a corner. VAR checked to see whether one of the shots had been deflected by Torreira’s hand, but not even technology was able to give the home side any leverage in the game.

Ferguson took the applause from the grateful home support at the final whistle and can take pride in staying technically unbeaten against four decent teams in his short run as caretaker. He would have vastly preferred to go out with a bang rather than a whimper, however, even if an Everton side capable of going 90 minutes at Goodison without a shot on target is now a problem for Ancelotti to solve.