Arsenal vs Liverpool FC - Premier League
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A Season-Defining Clash for Arteta’s Title Pursuit as Arsenal vs Liverpool


The thing about going 20 years without a PL title and falling agonisingly short twice in a row in the two seasons before is that you go into the new season thinking every dropped point, every semi-convincing performance, even every self-/referee-sabotaged performance, is the end. It doesnโ€™t matter if itโ€™s the first game of the season, the thirtieth, or the ninth. You have to win every game, and you have to win them convincingly.

It doesnโ€™t matter, too, if Europeโ€™s highest open play chance creator and club captain has been out for the most part, or as many as seven potential starters + a sizable raft of key squad players canโ€™t put a run of games together within an 8-week old season.ย 

Every Arsenal fan will so quickly point the hyper-over-reactivity to an Arsenal thing, a predisposition as old as the 21st century itself, but it doesnโ€™t help when the nemesis of it all is none other than the greatest manager in the world, his sea of blue sharks, and their collective band of 115 charges. The cynics and detractors will call it an easy excuse, apart from Jurgen Klopp, maybe, but the logic of an 8-week old season is that youโ€™re better off focusing on yourself anyway rather than caring too much about your biggest threat to glory.

But letโ€™s be honest, itโ€™s hard to keep the logic when you see John Stones score a late winner to prevent your club from a first win at the Etihad in 8 years and then go on to score another winner a day after your first loss of the season. Youโ€™re excused to be a fan on some days, Iโ€™ll tell you that.ย 

Arsenal vs Liverpool: The Stakes in Artetaโ€™s Title Challenge

The โ€˜truthโ€™ of Arsenalโ€™s season, howeverโ€”even if you are a proponent of Arsenal and their fans looking withinโ€”is not as explainable as youโ€™d think, and that often means a lot of ammunition for both the pessimists, as it is equally for the optimists. Even so, what both sides of the aisle can agree on is that Sundayโ€™s game is a big oneโ€”despite being as early as Octoberโ€”and whatever the context of the season is, it will not matter. It is against the club that once bore the ignominy of being Cityโ€™s main challenger, the club whose fans scorn at the idea of Arsenalโ€™s new found place in the hierarchy of things and are actively yearning to fight back, for that matter.

Slotโ€™s Reds have had their best start to a season in over a hundred years. Theyโ€™ve instantly laid the blueprint of what the vision of a post-Klopp Liverpool era would have always looked likeโ€”less chaos, less intensity, more control. The โ€˜truthโ€™ of Liverpoolโ€™s own season hasnโ€™t been so much as convoluted as it has been for their opponents on Sunday. It has been centered on a true but maybe slightly reductive fact: โ€œThey have not played any real big games,โ€ depending on where you see Enzo Marescaโ€™s Chelsea and how Liverpool approached that game. Well, on Sunday, they come up against Artetaโ€™s Arsenal, a massive game in many respects, even if a good number of Arsenal fans arenโ€™t so seemingly bullish about their chances. 

Injuries and Suspensions: Arsenalโ€™s Woes This Season

The gunners will go into the game sweating over the fitnesses of Jurrien Timberโ€”the guy who equalled Trentโ€™s record for most chances created by a defender in the PL only a few weeks agoโ€”Bukayo Sakaโ€”the guy whoโ€™s somewhere at the top of the big chances created chart in Europeโ€”and Ricardo Calafioriโ€”the guy whoโ€™s breathed life into Arsenalโ€™s left side attacking dynamics. Add that to Odegaard, Tomiyasu, and William Salibaโ€”the guy whoโ€™s unarguably one of the best defenders in the world, hence simply irreplaceable for Arsenalโ€”and itโ€™s not looking great.

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Arsenal with and without William Saliba. Credit: Sky Sports

Arteta knows itโ€™ll be hard, but heโ€™s not making excuses beforehand; heโ€™s never done so, aside from a few bust ups with the PGMOL over the years, if you count those. The season itself has been hard in many other respects other than the injuries. Thereโ€™s been 3 red cards in 8 PL games, games that have included battles against Aston Villa, Manchester City, and Spurs, all away from the Emirates, for that matter. You can look at it and realize Artetaโ€™s team were that John Stones winner away from going 9 out of 9 in those games. A viewpoint that also screams โ€œ4 points from the top after a tough fixture list is not bad.โ€ But perhaps the Bournemouth away performance even after a raft of changes plus a red card in the first half is enough to send a group of fans like Arsenalโ€™s into panic mode, especially when the very next game sees their club hold on to a one-nil lead against the mighty Shakhtar Donetsk towards the end, and most especially when the next fixture after that is against top of the table Liverpool.

Arsenal without the reds


Arsenalโ€™s 11v11 xG for and against has them as the best team in the league; however, theyโ€™ve already gone over 160 minutes with a man down this season, 100 more minutes than the next team. Thatโ€™s also 18 red cards (most) overall since Arteta took the job in 2019. They were up by a goal vs. City and Brighton, and drawing vs. Bournemouth before the card came out, they went on to draw the first two and lose the last one. But you see, the thing about going 20 years without a PL title where you fall agonizingly short, twice in a row in the two most recent seasons before this is that you have to pick up points, no matter the circumstances, especially if those red cards are proving ever so unpreventable, for one reason or the other.

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Arsenal 11v11 xG for/against. Credit: Mark stats

The validity of those red cards is still being debated, and for logical reasons too, mostly due to the sheer level of subjectivity around them. But whatever happens vs. Liverpool on Sunday, Arsenal know seeing themselves top of an 11v11 xG chart will mean nothing if theyโ€™re not 1 point off Liverpool by the end of the game. It is fair to think, however, that these red cards will be far from a regular occurrence as the season progresses, but it is Arsenalโ€™s reaction to going down a man that has raised a few eyebrows. For Arteta, perhaps the most prudent thing to do is to shut up shop and rely on one of Europeโ€™s best defenses, but for many others, including Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville, youโ€™ve got to be braver, even away at the Etihad, and more so at the Vitality. Whether thereโ€™s logic in that give itโ€™s as early as October is perhaps another debate entirely. 

โ€œBelieve me on Sunday, we will be flying.โ€

โ€“ Mikel Arteta in his press conference.

Arteta says his team will be flying on Sunday, but at this point, you have to wonder if heโ€™s thought about flying with a man down if/when it comes to it. In any case, he knows their opponents will prepare vigorously to fly on their own at the Emirates. Everyone at Liverpool sees the Arsenal game as their biggest test yet, it is a fixture theyโ€™ve not won in the PL for two years, one that they use to make light work off in the seasons preceding Kloppโ€™s final two years at the Liverpool helm. It is a results-shift that has reinforced and underlined Arsenalโ€™s right to belong in title conversations again. It is also again, in some ways, a battle for who has desirably undesirable honor to stand best against City and Pep. This is easily one of the Premier Leagueโ€™s most divine fixtures, but the headlines will be anything but divine for the home team if they donโ€™t pick up a good result. 

A big performance is needed

Perhaps, equally as a good result, it must be a hell of a performance, one similar to last yearโ€™s in February, when a loss could have seen Arsenal fall off Liverpool by a distance after a not so great start to the season. Arsenal will have to look to Gabriel Martinelli in attack, a player whoโ€™s looking more recently remotely close to the promise that saw Klopp call him โ€˜a talent of the century,โ€™ and a player who likes playing against Liverpool for that matter. They may have to look, too, to Gabriel, who, despite being a top defender in his own right, has also been key to Arsenalโ€™s attacking dynamics as much as the attackers have this season, and who will also be missing the influential William Saliba by his side. The onus will also fall on the rejuvenated Thomas Partey in midfield, as it will on Declan Rice, whose start of the season hasnโ€™t mirrored the highs of the previous season, due to a variety of reasons. 

Whether or not Liverpool themselves are better this year than last still remains to be seenโ€”even for their fans, who are still getting used to the change in pressing schemes, amongst other tactical tweaks at Anfieldโ€”that same question will be asked of Arsenal, in spite of the possible absentees and the context of how their games have gone. But whatever happens, it is another big test for Arsenal early on in the season; for Mikel Arteta too, they have to pass it, both to send a message of calm across the Arsenal fanbase and to send, also, a message of defiance to the rest of the league that theyโ€™re still the most ready to take Cityโ€™s crown, not Liverpool. Doing it without a red card will be nice.ย 

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