David Luiz says that Arsenal could have had a different outcome at Liverpool if they’d scored first, and seemed to suggest that because he didn’t pull Mo Salah’s shirt with full power, the decision to award a penalty against him was harsh.
It was as clear a penalty as you’ll ever see, but rather than hold his hands up and admit a mistake, the Brazilian rambled on about the power of the tug, VAR, and even how players wearing extra large shirts might win more penalties.
The Gunners went down 3-1 to Liverpool at Anfield, and while Luiz admitted that the spot kick early in the second half ‘killed the game’, he didn’t seem to take any real responsibility for it.
“I think we created a lot chances here,” he told Sky Sports afterwards. “Liverpool is doing amazing for many years, yes. But if we scored first I think it could be a different game, and we had an opportunity to do that.
“The second goal, the penalty killed the game, and after that it was more difficult.
“What we take is the spirit, trying to play until the end, we scored a goal, it could have been a different game today.”
Asked about his very obvious foul on the Egyptian, Luiz continued, “It was a reflex. When I turned, I see [him], and I take out the power.
“I spoke with Momo and he said he didn’t feel it, that’s why he didn’t go to the floor.
“But now with the VAR you can’t see the power, it’s difficult for the referees, he sees the shirt like that. I don’t know, I can’t complain with the referees, it’s difficult for them.
“If you play with a large, extra large shirt now, you could have a penalty every time.
“It’s interpretation, so I think if you pull someone with power and you change his ability to go to the ball, it’s different, so it was just a reflex.
“That’s it, I got a yellow, so then I could not make a foul and put my team in trouble with 10 men so that conditioned my game a bit.
“But as I said the team fought until the end, we created a lot of chances to score today. We have 6 points, we have to look forward to a tough game against Tottenham and try to win.”
As for Arsenal’s struggles in playing out from the back, Luiz believes that will get better in time
“We are trying to build from the back, we have the quality for that. We’ll try to improve every game, try to attack deep and move the ball between the lines.”
It was harsh dropping chambers for Luiz last week- and this doesn’t help
Yeah because Chambers is always brilliant against Liverpool.
We did well enough until their first goal. The second Matip scored our game plan was fucked unfortunately.
Maybe he was not always brillant. But he came back from a good season, had à full pre-season to build automatism with Sokratis and a good game against newcastle.
I think that s more positive than a guy with two weeks of work with us.
Mane would fry poor Callum, we already tried playing Chambo against them, he always struggled with their pace
Unlike the rest of our defenders who absolutely revel in the challenge of facing pacy attackers.
Sure, if we’d scored first it might have been different and if Luiz hadn’t pulled Salah’s shirt he might not have scored and if, on and on … Still he was to blame for the loss.
Maybe he’s to blame. It did kill the game. But I’m thinking Salah is either scoring or crossing for Mane to tap in if the peno isn’t given. I think we are all waiting for Luiz to be calamitous but I don’t think he was today. Liverpool are just very good at attacking. And we have a 33 year old and a young DM at full back.
“think we are all waiting for Luiz to be calamitous but I don’t think he was today”
He shipped on two goals that are good responsibility. That was a terrible game from him. Third goal was awful defending. I’m glad we signed him and said so, but this is the type of game and mistakes we all feared.
No sign of your afore mentioned “swag” then Dave?
Still happenING
Hehe. Looking forward to it!
Definite errors made here: tactics – playing it out from back too much, and Luiz made some costly errors, but it wasn’t all bad, when we turned them over and played it out quick we looked great and dangerous, we should have kept that tempo up more all game. Some good signs. Things to improve and Liverpool are class. Klopp is class… Baby steps… I don’t think people need to prep the nooses yet but any means.
Absolutely agree. Just need 3 points from Sp*rs and we go into the international break in good shape. Pepe is going to be fucking class!
Third yes he got done on a turn, but when defender comes out to put pressure on the attacker, those things can happen, what worried me more how slowly Papa came out to confront Salah: Luiz is done, Nacho clearly not being to catch up. The only person who can intervene is Papa, but yeah he did have a Mane behind, but I would prefer if he came out on Salah instead, at least to prevent him from having an easy clear shot
Pretty sure if not for the yellow he would have taken Salah out for the 3rd. But knowing that maybe he should have not gone in so fast.
Think its harsh to blame Luiz for the game loss. Liverpool are better than us to be honest and the manager didnt really give us a fighting chance with his selections, tactics and subs. I actually think he us our best defender. Love the way some Arsrnal fans turn on a player after one performance.
If Mustafi had done, that, you wouldn’t have tried to find justifications for him.
@Eternal. Absolutely correct. Luiz has out-mustafied Mustafi in blaming others.
Well maybe you give a player who’s been at the club ten minutes a bit more respect and support than immediately throwing him under the bus. Give him a chance to learn the system at least.
I’m sure the first few mistakes by Mustafi would have been quickly forgiven. It’s just he did it for four seasons.
Agent Luis made it easy for the excellent pool, but our tactics helped them too. 3.5 rate for Emery.
Emery did get it wrong IMO and (unlike him), he was too slow to change it. We didn’t have enough steel in midfield to break up their waves of attack. It was only going to be a matter of time when they would score. Liverpool have one of the best teams in the world right now but they still haven’t won the league since it became the Premiership which is the ultimate benchmark not cups that rely on draws and how a team plays on that day! They destroyed most teams last season and still never won the league. We… Read more »
Sideshow Bob At his finest.
Can’t say I’m surprised. We just love buying error prone players don’t we?
Also, “if we scored first…” could apply to any game any team loses
Except last time we scored first on Anfield and still got roasted, so in this case I am not even sure that would have worked.
Better than last season…
Haters gonna hate.
Yes
I didnt blame him too……..
I just want him to show us what we need to learn before Holding walks into that team.
Emery killed the game before kick off with that line up.
the positive is that
3 down, 35 to go
we will get better as the season progresses
COYG
The tatics actually worked pretty well before we conceded from a corner. Liverpool didn’t have too many chances at the time and we always looked dangerous on the counter. I was actually more surprised that he didn’t change at all at half-time or at least after we went 2-0 down.
I thought the formation was working well, but the problem was trying to play it out from back. Liverpool played us like a fiddle with that. They didn’t over commit through the middle and forced the ball wide, then closed down and stayed tight in the middle off the ball. When the full backs and wider midfielders tried to play out of those tight wide positions they had to make tough passes into a packed centre… Mistakes will happen from that and they did. Burley over committed in closing down and ceballos killed them, Liverpool played it perfectly and killed… Read more »
Tactics my arse. If your “tactic” is hold on for dear life for 90 mins and hope they can’t fuck us, you have the call the tactic shit when they turn around and whack 3 past us. If you play negative and get a negative result, then you are just getting exactly what you ask for. For the life of me I can’t understand why, if we are bad at defending we would put so much emphasis of doing it for so long. Why not have an actual crack at them? Was Emery’s statement that he would prefer 5-4 style,… Read more »
Miles wrong. Emery gave us a chance with the line-up. You remember us playing well with a different formation last season or the one before that..? If Pepe or Auba take their chance we’re ahead and it’s not like Emery or the formation can be blamed for any of their goals..
Twas a dumb mistake hopefully we don’t see it again. Now lets move on.
Dont count on it.
We didn’t take our chances. We need to play long diagonal balls into the channels when we can’t bypass a team like Liverpool to stretch their press.
More patience needed.
Exactly we were so dangerous when we played far and direct and yet the whole game they just tried to play it out from the back slowly and Liverpool didn’t over commit and were patient waiting for mistakes. This was definitely the game to play it up field at least as a variation, but we seem too locked into that style and it won’t work against a team that is so well set up tactically on the press. The Liverpool of ball game is the best in world football… So don’t let them do it…
Which one? The foul for the pen or the “defending” prior to the 3-0?
The Pen the second one I can understand It can happen to anyone , he closed in on Salah (not bad , but i’ts Salah so) was getting turned and couldnt do anything because he was on a yellow Normally he would take Salah out and get the yellow there.
If you know you’re on a yellow you shouldn’t go in a challenge against Salah that high on the pitch. He was praised for his experience when we signed him but the foul for the pen as well as the defending prior to the third where schoolboy quality. Expect more from a guy like him. If he makes such bad mistakes I’d rather play Chambers. At least he’ll learn from them.
He does sort of make sense…. sort of. Still, it was a spanking away to the Champions of Europe and probably the toughest fixture we’ll have all season is out of the way , so some perspective I think. Smash the spuds next week and this will all be forgotten.
basically saying he was holding his shirt, not impeding him.
which is true and I hope var brings with it consistency…
laca could have a had a few pens last week if it did.
No doubt! Some of their defenders thought Laca was a ladder D:
Holding his shirt, not impeding him…. is a foul and will be penalised. VAR, if it gets used, only needs to show the shirt being held and THAT is a free kick/penalty.
Why do people keep trying to insist that tugging somebody “gently” by the shirt is not a foul?
Because its not consistent! The refs need to be on the same page and not one that gives it and one that doesn’t! As said, Lacca was getting his shirt pulled all over the place last week and got nothing. It’s Anfield baying for blood, it’s Salah the darling of the BBC and it’s bollocks.
still giving him the benefit of the doubt but his performance and comments reminds me of a certain german defender in our squad
I understand some of the disappointment around, but I don’t understand the amount of reactive calls from Unai to be sacked, it’s just ridiculous. This was always going to be a 2-3 year job, the overall signs are positive, and this season is realistically only going to be a scrap for top 4, with plenty of bumps along the way. Klopp is in his 4th season, Liverpool are the European champions, and without doubt one of the worlds top 3 teams, much better and more established team than us, have come off much worse than we did today at Anfield.… Read more »
Exactly! Most sensible thing I’ve read on here since the game
Maybe say something about the match we just watched/Luiz/ Luiz’s reactions??
I agree and no way we should be talking sacking, but he did get schooled today. The persistent play it out from the back against such a disciplined and tractically astute pressing team was a poor decision and it was clear early that Liverpool were ready and not over committing to expose themselves. No adjustment. Klopp showed his class. Emery needs to be more aware and ready to adapt to such situations.
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t…. Liverpool are a more mature team, and at a more advanced stage in their cycle. People we’re saying exactly the same thing about Klopp defensively just 18 months ago, then he gets the right pieces in place, and Liverpool have the best defence in the league last season. There’s a difference between being demanding, and losing touch with reality. Arsenal fans are nuts, they seem to have a sense of entitlement, have no awareness about where we are within our current project, and have long given up the notion of… Read more »
Not a 2-3 year job. It is a 2 year job. That’s the contract he signed. This year he MUST get it right or he’s gone.
I really fear the future with Emery..he doesn’t fill me with confidence anymore to be honest…his decisions are baffling….this crop of players deserve a coach like Erik ten haag(ajax coach)… He would work wonders with this team..let’s go get him before it gets worse than this…i want a coach who goes out without fear..Erik ten haag is very similar to klopp,guardiola and pochettino….i watched his Ajax team and i remembered the style of the invincibles and he achieved this with premier league rejects like blind and tadic..imagine what he would do with this crop of players….we need to have a… Read more »
I want to enjoy expansive, high pressing,possesive and counter attacking football once again….I’m tired of this fearful and cautious football deployed by Emery..it keeps me embarrassed……i need a team that can go to the home turfs of Bayern,juventus,real Madrid and Tottenham and hold their own like Ajax…Erik ten hag is the man we need.. He is no fluke!!… Let’s take him before he goes to a rival.. We don’t need another klopp disappointment when we didn’t have him just because we supported wenger…we shouldn’t make the same mistake with Emery… A WORD IS ENOUGH FOR THE WISE!! GET ERIK TEN… Read more »
Premier league is a whole new ball game. PLayers like Tadic and Blind can’t survive the pace of EPL.. So before we decide to jump ship keep it in mind that Ten Haag has no idea how EPL functions and what it takes. Even Guardiola and Kloopo needed multiple seasons to understand it.
i agree with everything except your raging hard on for Ten Hag
I’m damn serious about Ten Hag that’s why I’m raging for him.. He is the next klopp if not better with a better experienced squad than his Ajax squad inspired young players
It’s ironic that ten Hag gets mentioned today, but he was terrible in his first two seasons at Ajax and very nearly got the sack.
Exactly mate. We actually have a fantastic crop young exciting players. I’m starting to doubt if Emery is the right manager to take this team to the next level
We new what we were getting before we signed him, he is prone to daft errors one week then showing brilliance the next. Let us hope that is the case…..
He’s lucky he didn’t get sent off.
Didn’t we all know Luiz is not for the long term, that’s what your going to get from him every so often. We where up against the kings of Europe. Anfield is a hard enough please to go to but there team has been playing together for a couple of years now. We have to get to this level!!!
Long term? May as well have used Mustafi.
And the David Luiz we all know has arrived. Please give Chambers his starting birth back for the NLD.
I miss the one touch football that we used to play.
We executed that 10 times better than this Liverpool side. There used to be magic moves even in defeats.
It was so much fun to watch Arsenal. 🙁
There was that moment though, when willock and Ceballos played like a hundred 1-2s groom box to box…
I hope the team starts playing in XXXXXXXL shirts, a few pens would be nice
This is a a good article
No problem w Luiz comments. They beat us quite fairly. It was always optimistic to play Willock and Guendouzi against the reigning European Champions at home. Watching Matteo struggle in midfield, struggle to defend, and then get out muscled and out hustled in the box highlights his inadequacies and the fact a coach like Klopp would be hellbent on finding them out when presented with the opportunity. Klopp had to have been licking his chops. Guendouzi is not a Wijnaldum talent. He is not as strong, or as fast or as sharp. He’s a young one who has yet to… Read more »
Agree with everything except the Mikhi part. He’s just not that good. But you’re bang on the money with everything else.
No problem with poor positioning second game in a row. First Barnes now a tug on the shirt for a penalty then a second goal when he was too tight and easily turned.
No problem with panic buy and dropping points.
Short and to the point. Refreshing 😉
Top teams do not sell their best players to direct rivals. Arsenal don’t seem to know this and keep buying over-the-hill lemons from other top six teams. Its been going on for years. Chelsea and United must piss themselves laughing when we come knocking on their door for “experienced” defenders.
The first half I was thinking glad we went with Luiz and to be honest he was having a fine game. Then came the second half?
And now this explanation, he is not brightest is he.
One Week that’s it… That’s how it long lasted to play a game without any stupid mistakes.
Comedy goal/gold.
Fine game.
Lose his man and tug him back…
Too tight on Salah and gets tuned for another goal.
Likes defending does he?
Might be an unpopular opinion here but look, I think he is correct in what he says about the power of the tug…when he first done it I said to my lpool mate that 2nd game and already hes given a penalty away. After reflecting, he didn’t pull hard at all and I dont think he had a bad game as some say. Look let’s persevere a bit before we get all crazy an shittt
He had a handful of shirt. How hard he tugged is irrelevant.
That’s some manager level deflection there! No doubt we will have some issues from Sokratis and Luis and their shithousery, but overall I prefer that than a lack of fight.
Shirt pulling in the era of VAR is not shithousery. Its shit-for-brains.
The game of today has nothing to say much on Luiz but Unai was not clever towards liverpool and his midfield was not aggressive and it leads to our defence force to suffer much from liverpool attacking team and again his front force was very week Aub he was left Pepe alone and was wise to have Laca at gun and then will could have buried liverpool, so Luiz stay free the problem is the tractical way Unai use was poor indeed, too much small boys who lack cohesion and endurance on big games. The day is over but we… Read more »
Guys ,we simply are not yet at their level.There were lots of encouraging signs for us and we will make the step up next season
Sideshowbob lost his man at Burnley. Barnes knocked it in.
Today another two mistakes which had it been Mustafi some people would be claiming it will cost us the season.
Go figure. Delusional much?
It’s a frustrating result because there were reasons to be hopeful in the game that we couldn’t capitalize on. But we should take heart from that. The world hasn’t been turn turned upside down by the result. The NLD will be completely different – it always is…
“EVERYTHING IS SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!!”
5-1 last season, 3-1 this season, gonna call it now and say it will be 1-1 next season. Joking aside, i am looking at the positives from this game. Willock was thrown into a very hard game and thought he handled himself well. Pepe looks lethal, just wish his shot wasn’t straight at Adrian (Karius in disguise). That Liverpool side is just really strong right now. I was just glad that we actually kept playing. Seasons before we would have thrown the towel in at 2-0 down but even in the 86th minute we were probing for goals. Good signs… Read more »
Send this man out with a yellow card at the beginning and he will play beautifully for the rest of the game
Great to see people blinkered as usual.
Avoid faults of some, highlight others.
Pretend there isn’t a problem. Heads in the sand.
Luiz is an excellent panic buy. Won’t cost us points this season…oh wait.
We know… bring back Mustafi. At least your posts are shorter – we can all be thankful for that.
I don’t really care about how much he fucked up, which he did, a bit. What I like and care about is his positive attitude. He’s a good leader for this team. We need that desperately. We need players to defend the team’s performance, even when it’s not great. Today wasn’t all bad, particularly in comparison to recent performances at Anfield. I’ll accept him trying to highlight the positives despite the overall imbalance in quality and, in my opinion, the poor strategic setup. Don’t let the negativity weigh this team down, there’s still much reason for optimism this season.
Thank goodness we don’t have Mustafi…
Oh wait, we did great business and Signed Sideshowbob from Chelsea.
Absolutely not a panic buy or a band aid.
No it can’t be, its a new era.
It was a real bargain and we obviously have made great strides to fix our defense signing a relatively untested 18yr old for 27m and a player known for calmitous mistakes except of course more experience than our own German.
If you pretend there are no bad points and only look at the postives in Luiz, you too can end up like Robbie on AFTV.;)
You’re 100% right – if we’d had Mustafi, the score would probably had been 5:1! Why don’t you do your best as his (unofficial?) agent, and get him a move asap so we can re-allocate his massive wage packet?
Jeyzus Mary and Joseph! Give it a rest. I try to ignore the repetitive drivel but I can’t forget a certain performance at palace last season to not be able to take seeing any more of this.
Thanks to everyone else who has shown some perspective.
Two mistakes that aren’t going to cost us unlike Mustafi.
No one makes mistakes like Mustafi, foolishly losing his player in the box and then having a tug at the shirt.
Or getting too close to Salah high up the pitch and getting turned like a top.
Defense obviously fixed without the German. No more silly mistakes.
Mustafi, Mustafi, Mustafi … you’re obsessed with him, aren’t you. Do you have a photo of him on your ‘phone? The Mustafi era is over. He should move on – and so should you!
The Luiz era is over. He should move on – and did. To us! We fell for the same trick yet again. Luiz, Mustafi, Silvestre. We’ve been screwing up the same way for years.
We are trying to build from the back, we have the quality for that. We’ll try to improve every game, try to attack deep and move the ball between the lines.” True, we are improving, (impressed with the calm of the team in 1st half, i was nervous a few times) and the speed at which we do it will also improve. We have seen the type of player we need to do this , players with complete ball control, then training will blend them into a team. This year will be another transitioning year, unless we get new additions… Read more »
So nobody found these errors very mustafi-esque?
Luiz was always an error prone defender for all his qualities. And today he went full Mustafi. If it had been Mustafi playing, we’d have absolutely killed him.
We shouldn’t dwell too much now on Mustafi as he’s old news (hopefully), but if Luiz makes errors of the frequency and scale he did – and it’s early days yet, so there’s no comparison – no doubt he’ll suffer the same fate. That would be quite right too. It would be daft to say we should have somehow kept playing Mustafi because Luiz makes mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes but we are entitled to expect more from highly paid, and in these two cases, experiended, players. There’s no contradiction. If player “A” can’t do it, bring in player “B”. But… Read more »
…and in the meantime player “D” leaves us because he can’t get a game.
He undone a pretty good performance with two moments of stupidity. That said after he got rinsed by Salah what was everyone else doing. It was pretty obvious what Salah was going to do. Nobody thought to close the angle and show him onto his right foot. Sokratis in particular should have intervened.
It’s unfortunate, in particular, that two experienced central defenders – Luiz in particular, and Sokratis to a lesser extent – made them, despite their considerable experience.
Everyone agrees (everyone except, apparently, the Mustafi-acolyte on this site, “Santori”) that all players – no matter how good – make mistakes. It’s the type of error and the frequency that count. While our two defenders didn’t make many they made costly ones. The important thing is to learn from this (Mustafi clearly never did, “Santori”) for the future.
I don’t think this was bizarre. From his POV, these are the nuances he sees. Not sure he is trying to absolve himself. Kinda makes sense. Salah didn’t feel the tug, and large shirts might look they are being pulled far more vigorously than they actually are. Maybe he could have added a statement at the end “So I should be more careful with that”.
But since most of us already are waiting for his mistakes, we prefer a version where he’s making “bizarre” excuses. I think we should give him a pass on this one…
We should play in gowns so we get more penalties
I have no problems with us losing against Liverpool, just don’t go thinking that David Luiz is the answer to our CB issues. He was a last minute panic buy because we had run out of options or were unwilling to pay silly money for another one in the last few days. He has his good moments but will also make daft mistakes like yesterday and cost us points and is not an upgrade on Kos who left.
Anyone thought David luiz might be working under cover?? His mission to concede as many goals as possible so Chelsea finish above us and get champions league spot, when mission over big bag of cash through his letter box,, lol
This…. ““But now with the VAR you can’t see the power, it’s difficult for the referees, he sees the shirt like that. I don’t know, I can’t complain with the referees, it’s difficult for them.” ….tells me that Luiz is a f***wit. If you are going to play the game professionally you need to know the rules, even if you only intend to break them. ANY pull on the shirt or shorts of an opponent is a foul. How hard you pull makes no difference. Its really very simple. If you tug the kit you’re in the shit. If this… Read more »
He’s obviously clutching at some straws to try and rationalise his error but it’s a bit harsh to try and paint that as some sort of lunatic rant. Anyway, Luiz is a good defender and the real issue is how they were invited into our box time and time again by Unai’s strange formation and team selection. This was always going to result in goals or penalties being given away.
Should have got Cahill instead of Luiz
Luiz is basically trying to say that such dark arts have a place in the game.. which is true.. Ramos, Ferdinand, Terry have always been at the top of this..
So I get what Luiz is saying.. but he is no match for Salah anyway..
I’m not too worried about this loss. After all it was against one of the best attacking units in Europe. And don’t forget how long it took Klopp to get Liverpool playing the game his way. Now look at the them. I can see Emery doing the same given time. So let’s not worry too much about losing this game. Our time will come
In last season’s 5-1 drubbing, we conceded two penalties and Luiz wasn’t with the team. Stop acting as if Arsenal was great and Luiz spoiled the game for us. These things happen and the least we can do is get behind our players and the team. Apart from those two mistakes I think he played well and will continue to be for us.