Premier League: Injury and indiscipline-hit Gunners look for home comforts against Liverpool
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta during the Premier League match at the Vitality Stadium, Bournemouth. Picture : Steven Paston/PA Wire
Another Sunday, another landmark game in the Premier League. After Liverpool got over the first hurdle of their ridiculously difficult run of games in the coming month, with the 2-1 win over a rejuvenated Chelsea, they now are cast in against fellow title-aspiring Arsenal at the Emirates.
Liverpool boss Arne Slot continues to enjoy a remarkable and unexpected start to his role at Anfield with 11 wins in 12 games, albeit that they rode their luck on occasions against Chelsea last Sunday and Leipzig on Wednesday. Mikel Arteta’s Gunners, on the other hand, have faced headwinds living up to the hope that they would take the next step from the runners-up position they have resided in for the last two seasons.
It's way too early, and Arsenal are far too accomplished, to be writing off their season, but there will be concerns in the camp if they cannot get a positive result against Liverpool. Their league season has already seen two draws and an underwhelming defeat against Bournemouth last Sunday. While this would look like good form in any other league, it is far from a comfortable position after two months in the Premier League. A league where you can only really afford to draw five or six times and only lose four to five times, at most, if you are to be in with a chance of being crowned champion, come season’s end.
Arsenal were no doubt happy to see the back of Jurgen Klopp at the helm in Anfield. The Gunners faced the Reds 17 times in the Premier League during the German’s tenure but only came away with three wins over those nine years. But to be fair to Arteta, he and his side did seem to be getting the measure of Klopp’s team in recent years, with the Londoners only losing once, in an FA Cup tie, against the Merseysiders in the five times they met across all competitions since 2022.
The question now is whether that revival continues against Slot, or can the Dutchman maintain his remarkable winning start into the Gunners’ London heartland?
The answer to this will unfold in tomorrow’s result, with one of the considerations involved in the outcome being whether this recent Arsenal defeat is just a blip in the season or an indication of bigger problems?
As we discussed last week, many of the league’s top sides struggle for results in the first game back from an international break. Liverpool were made to work against Chelsea. Man City required a big dose of luck to secure their 95th minute reprieve from John Stones and a generous Var decision to secure full points against lowly Wolves. So, it’s not entirely shocking to see Arsenal stumble against an often-tricky Cherries side, especially when the Gunners were down a player for nearly two thirds of the game.
And that sending off of Willian Saliba, by bringing down Bournemouth’s Evanilson, preventing a goal-scoring chance, is maybe a bigger concern for Arteta than any drop of form, especially when put in the context of Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard’s red cards, Arsenal two other sending-offs this season. This is telling as Arsenal won five from five in the matches they held a full complement of players to the final whistle, while they lost points in the three games, they were down a man. The red cards also show a certain loss of discipline within the ranks, certainly regarding Rice, Trossard’s red cards, where moments of petulance resulted in second yellows being issued. Even Saliba’s Var-upgraded red could be argued as an unnecessary infringement by the centre back, as Evanilson still had a lot of work to do before he was in a position to actually threaten the goal.
It means that Saliba will now miss tomorrow’s crucial encounter complicating Arteta and Arsenal’s ongoing injury situation which sees Riccardo Calafiori, Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Kieran Tierney, and Martin Odegaard now all doubtful of any quick comebacks to play.
In Arteta’s favour is the fact that they have a day extra to recover from their Champions League exertions against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday at home. Whereas Liverpool played away in Germany on Wednesday and will have to travel down to London for this encounter.
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