Arsenal (0.53) 0 - 2 (1.28) Liverpool
Oh what could have been. Call it arrogance, call it false hope, call it simply being a fan and thinking you have a chance... but I was confident leading up to the match and I am not really going to apologize for it. Why shouldn't we as fans have hope and belief? We have been playing our best football as of late and given our performance against the last giant (City) I thought "why not tonight?" At the end of the day I think most are proud of the boys and the performance they put in. And if you cannot clearly see we are improving and backing this manager and squad then pack it up and leave our club.
We looked really good in the first half. It seemed a bit cagey, as neither side really wanted to give too much away, but we were competitive and not really allowing Liverpool to threaten much. From what I could tell all they had going for them was a long ball in behind our line - which until the end of the half Liverpool had nothing going there either. I think it was 1 SOG for them and 0 for us. So, nothing crazy, but it was an entertaining 0-0 and I thought we were firmly in the mix. We quickly saw that Alexander-Arnold was not up for defending Gabi, as the latter seemed to beat him every chance he got while on the ball. Although if you did not watch the match and stuck to reading headlines from pressers you would not have believe that as Klopp said this about his defender:
If someone of you still thinks that Trent cannot defend... then sorry, but you have no idea about football! It's just madness..
Ermmm... don't think he was watching the same match as all of us because TAA got beat more times than not, and maybe every time. I am sure he is only publicly backing his own guy, but let's be real here. We know what TAA is known for and that was a question I had pre-match - how do we neutralize him? Well it appeared Mikel sat up in a 442 formation while defending and from what I could tell Martinelli was responsible for picking up his runs. There was an instance of this where Liverpool played a ball into the outside channel and had it been someone else I think the Liverpool man could have found himself in a dangerous area, but Gabi showed his speed and alertness to win the ball and kill the play.
Fast forward to the second half and that is where the misery comes in. I hoped we could repeat the first half, but maybe have the final ball and finishing touch, it just was not meant to be. Our best chance of the evening came from a mistake by Thiago as he dropped the ball back and was intercepted by Lacazette. Laca couldn't get past Alisson and cut back it Ødegaard, but with great composure the keeper was able to get big and block the shot. From there Liverpool kicked into 6th gear and it was pretty much over in a span of 10 minutes. We kinda fell asleep as Thiago fed a through ball to Jota who took his chance and slotted his shot into Rambo's near post. Something like 7 goals in 7 apps for Liverpool against us. He makes me sick and is always the one to worry about when we play these guys.
When Ramsdale watches this one back I think he will be sick too. Don't think he should be getting beat near post there, especially from the angle. It's a mistake, but luckily those are far and few between for our man between the sticks. Everyone is due a mistake, so no need to be too critical here. The second goal came about 8 mins later and by way of not clearing our lines properly. Robertson picked it up and drove the byline to fizz a ball to Firmino, who made it 2-0 and effectively the game was up. Looking at the slo-mo I really don't know how it got through to him. Rambo was centimeters from getting a piece on it, but that kind of sums of the difference between us and the elite. They take their chances and are ruthless in front of goal. Something we showed we couldn't quite manage in the good spells of the first half. Mikel had this to say on the night:
I don’t think the result properly reflects the performance of the team, but from box to box I think in many moments we were the better team and we did everything we planned. The way the boys performed showed their courage to play the way that we wanted to play and the intensity and the understanding of the game, they really raised the level today, but unfortunately these games are won in the boxes and that was the critical difference today to not get anything out of this game unfortunately.
He's spot on. There's levels to this stuff and Liverpool showed why they are fighting for a PL title; 9 in a row for them and they know how to win the difficult games. We will get there. We showed how much we have improved, but now it is time to respond. We take the positives and continue our quest for top 4.
On a few positive notes to end:
Spurs and United still have to go to Anfield
We still control our own destiny
Congrats to our FOUR Lions - Rambo, White, Saka, ESR all called up for the fixtures later this month
Quick turnaround to right the wrongs. Villa Saturday in the early time slot. Until then, come on you Gunners!
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