Arsenal face Everton at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday night

MIKEL Arteta has enjoyed a rare treat: a whole week to work with his players ahead of Saturday night’s title-testing trip to Everton.

If Arsenal are to go on and win their first Premier League crown in more than two decades, then toppling the Toffees at Hill Dickinson Stadium could prove crucial.

The Gunners have been top of the table for the majority of the season, but they are expected to have been knocked off the summit by Manchester City by the time they step out for the Arteta derby.

Plotting his preparations going into “a season-defining” run of fixtures, Arteta said he was looking forward to getting out on the training pitch with his players – a luxury he’s rarely been afforded when the club is playing every three days.

“What we have to do now is reset, give them [the players] two days so that they can decompress a little bit, and then we have a long week that we can prepare,” said the Gunners boss. “When we don’t train, there are things that slowly deteriorate – certain habits start to deteriorate because you don’t train them. We need to use this opportunity to do so. It will give everybody a boost because we know that the Christmas period is often seen as season-defining, and we want to be on top of it.”

Among the players who have enjoyed a brief rest is Bukayo Saka. The winger’s balls into the box led to two own-goals as Arsenal stuttered to a 2-1 victory over Wolves at Ashburton Grove.

Echoing Arteta’s rallying “reset” calls, Saka said: “It’s been a really, really busy schedule. Credit to all the boys and the staff because we’ve been so intense, but we’ve been on it and we’ve had some amazing results.

“It’s nice that we have a bit of a break, but it’s not time to relax. It’s a time to reset a bit and then go again into the training sessions and be ready for Everton.”

Arsenal will once again be without Gabriel this weekend, although there is hope the Brazilian will return for the crucial game against Aston Villa at the end of the month. Cristhian Mosquera is out until the middle of January with a knee injury, while Ben White has also been sidelined for at least a month after limping out of the Wolves game with a hamstring issue.

Offering an update on White’s situation, Arteta said: “Obviously, he hasn’t played a lot of minutes because of the previous knee issue that he had. Then the moment he started to get some momentum, he had to play a lot because we didn’t have any other solution.

“We had to even risk Wilo [Saliba] too. It probably wasn’t the best call to play [him for] 90 minutes against Wolves because we are buying tickets for another injury, but we don’t have anybody else.”