It wasn’t exactly our best performance ever, Liverpool dominated the game, had way more shots than we did, far more possession, but we still ran out 2-1 winners against the champions.
We were helped by mistakes from the Mugsmashers, but Alexandre Lacazette took advantage of the first one to score the equaliser after Sadio Mane’s opener, and he provided the assist for Reiss Nelson’s first Premier League goal which turned out to be the winner.
We had to work hard, dig in, and show some real commitment to keep a side as good as Liverpool at bay, and we did that. The players and the manager deserve some props this evening.
Read the Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool report and see the goals here
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Ratings
The ratings are now hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above Emi Martinez. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
10 for the team
11 for the win
That has to be a record for the number of players used in a single match. Real team effort though!
I am first?
Am I legend?
Are you fuck
Yes! I’m fuck,
last name you!
10/10 for absolutely battering them!
Good game Tierney
So gutted to have missed the Arsenal East Africa trip to Kampala this easter 🙁 Hope you’re running it next year?
I feel a bit for Kolasinac having no rating, when he came on we started fashioning chances again.
a nice cameo with little risk at that point.
Top error forcing, top suffering together..God knows we’ll need plenty of that for the next one!
I like the way our strikers are forcing errors from opposing defenders and goalkeepers to get goals. Keen to see the stats on this
That was odd
Hahahaha I’m so confused. Did Arsenal really look good defensively and our opponents were the ones giving away bad passes leading to goals!?!?!?!
Lacazette forever my striker!!!! Hope is form continues. And absolutely NO REASON Holding should he dropped anymore.
Funny how the Sky pundits feel its an unreasonable result but its so satisfying because we have been on the wrong end of the result despite amazing performances many times and not many naturals said ah thats not fair on Arsenal.
Happy 3 points.
Do we really care about pundit opinions?
They’re called cundits for a reason…
Nah.
Thank you.
Arsenal “gifted” the goals…no mention that both goals were well taken & not a given after the defensive errors. If that had been any other team holding onto a lead against L‘pool for 50 minutes it would be hailed as a “defensive masterclass”….Arsenal just got lucky though!!
Spoiled their pre prepared wank fest, and ensured they couldn’t produce their standard over simplistic comparison between god like champions and fallen from grace Arsenal. Lazy fuckers.
and while I’m on, did anybody else get majorly fed up with Tyler and Smiths appalling commentary? At one point the Liverpool sycophant Tyler referenced Arsenal being out possessed in the last game at Sp*rs. Which is wholly accurate. Apart from the fact we had in excess of 60% possession in that game. Still, who needs the truth when you have a narrative to play to?
Once the cloak of invincibility is gone all can be seen for its vulnerability.
I am in love with Emi.
How has that man sat on the sidelines for ten years being this effing good?
Compare his current level of command and confidence to how he looked in the FA cup when we shipped 5 goals to Reading, and the difference is striking. We are quite fortunate to have him.
League Cup
The young grows
Feck off….he’s mine
Would the love have been there if that early clearance into scouser had gone inside the post?
Leno has to be worried, especially if Emi’s long distribution improves.
World is a better place when arsenal win
Due to wifey being unhappy with the new kitchen I had to sit this game out. I really wish I’d seen Klopp’s angry face at the end. Not because I dislike him. I just think he has a great angry face. Probably the best angry face in football.
Get yourself a man shed buddy
What’s wrong with the kitchen?
A worktop not cut in accordance with her requirements. If you ask me there’s nothing wrong with it as it can be hidden but if you ask her it’s almost the end of the world.
Sorry mate??
The world must know! A cupboard misaligned? A table askew? C’mon, man! We need the deets!
It was more of a shocked/sad face than a mad face if it makes you feel any better.
Slackjaw at times.
Give her the saw and tell her to try it herself
Martinez: excellent
Lacazette: so intelligent
Laca looked like a man on fire, a point to prove during Eddie’s suspension.
A bit lucky maybe but Lacazette and Nelson deserve credit for forcing (or at least encouraging) the mistakes. When other teams do it, pundits call it “gegenpressing”! With Auba and Nketiah’s recent goals it’s clear what Arteta is asking from our forwards and it’s working.
Especially happy for Nelson because I expected him to feature more after the restart. Great composure for the goal as well. Holding had a very good game as well, should give Arteta pause for thought. Laca is also looking back to his best in the last couple of games.
Exactly. We’re finally learning how to press and when. Not once under Unai did we score a goal like this (conceded about 20 though) despite him claiming to like a press.
Arteta has taught the boys that at least so far
We had a few. Auba against Watford comes to mind in the match where Deeney got sent off a bit later. There was some pressing under Emery but now it’s sustained and, more importantly, well-coordinated.
We tried to press under Emery at times but without proper coordination. That meant we left huge gaps on the pitch, making us very easy to play through.
And Abbas. It’s almost like Arteta is working on a strategy. Don’t expect the tv pundits to pick up this trend though until it has become so blindingly obvious that nobody can miss it. Far easier to go with a pre prepared narrative than use original thought. If tv pundits collectively had an original thought it would die of loneliness.
Aubas..
A hard working Arsenal Team. Lovely
Martinez a 9 at least.
Now put the icing on the cake and get rid of Ozil. The team can fight without his nonchalant ass.
We won against Liverpool and you still have to speak about Ozil. I think you have a problem.
He’s already gone. The only thing that remains is that big weekly nut.
We also beat United 2-0 in a much more dominant performance. He ran the most distance on the pitch and had the most ball recoveries too. Quit the agenda.and scapegoating
There’s this chap called Rob Holding.
There’s this chap called fucking Rob Holding.
There’s a bloke who can defend and play well when he gets the nod, and his name is Rob Holding.
Oh and brilliant brilliant Martinez ( and Lacazette and Tierney)
Tackle that floored Mane was tits! Saw his bleach blond streak turn grey in seconds
Brilliant from Martinez again. Slightly annoying that we now have 2 excellent goalkeepers after about a decade of mostly sub-standard ones! Play Martinez at DM I don’t like how far we dropped off and gave them so much respect. Any time we did press up high or get on the ball in Liverpool’s half they looked vulnerable – massive gaps in their defence to exploit. But tbf, despite their shot count, we didn’t concede that many clear cut chances. Still that style of play is a footballing dead end and relies massively on luck. Worried about Pepe, he’s not pressing… Read more »
Imo Nelson is a confidence player. When he will get it he will be amazing. Arteta just needs to put him in positions like today where he can contribute and score goals.
Yeah, if he was more direct and aggressive he’d create so many chances and cards
But his rock solid technique and football intelligence makes him a useful player as is, and worthy of plenty of patience
Hopefully he develops more power and explosiveness like some players do in their early/mid 20s. I think that might be behind his hesitancy to take players on, he can’t just breeze past players anymore like in youth football
I think Cech had one or two amazing seasons for us. Szczesny was a very good keeper and still is. But he was not made for the premier league.
Cech had one or two amazing seasons for us absolute bollocks he was shit from start to finish
Agree completely on the GK part. Honestly we have two very good ones. Might be worth trying to sell one, as we could probably get a good price. But not sure which one I’d try to sell. On the Pepe front…unfortunately agree. He’s had quite a while to integrate and adjust, and we’re just not seeing the return, or in some cases the effort. In one case in particular today, he just walked around instead of trying to recover the ball. It’s particularly frustrating when I compare him to Pulisic and what Chelsea is getting for him for a similar… Read more »
One of those “substandard” GKs is starting for Juventus. Fabianski has been quite good.
I see what you mean about Pepe. He seems to want to do the defensive work but doesn’t quite know how. He also hangs onto the ball when he should be picking a pass. But he’s got enormous talent and maybe next season he’ll break through.
We pressed, but when they broke it we sat back. That’s fine.
Yeah, I love Nelson’s attitude.
Yeah but it took him years to displace a 40 year old. Amazing how fantastic some players become when they’ve gone. It’s like they never cocked up and didn’t deserve to be sold for having a poor attitude.
Oh come on, we haven’t had this level of gk performance with any kind of regularity since Lehmann in the CL final season.
Szczesny and Fabianski were allowed to be coached, by all accounts, by a buffoon – and it showed. I know full well they were massively talented, as they’ve shown post-Arsenal. But they were mostly poor for us
Cech had his moments but had several fatal flaws in his game by the time we signed him
Think about why we didn’t concede clear chances, cant go toe to toe against the Champs, Mane will gut you if do.
Liverpool would have dropped a lot more points this season if teams put more pressure on them. If we played that game 10 times, 9/10 we would have gone down meekly 2 or 3 nil
They can be got at, and I think that will become clear next season
Thought for a second that you were going to suggest that we play with two keepers…
gervinho was a better player than pepe.
Xhaka was awesome today. My man of the match.
Agree, he cut out so much danger. I don’t generally notice him when everyone praises him, but today I really thought Blogs would rate him as high as anyone else. Strange.
Maybe this is hyper critical, but he also let mane run past him to score their goal.
You could argue luiz got sucked over to cover firminho, and Tierney could have come over (that would have left space at far post though), these would be valid as well. But xhaka chose not to track firminho initially, he then looks at mane, knows he is there, and doesn’t track him with any real effort either leaving him unchallenged to slot it in. And you always seem to get at least one of those lapses a game with xhaka.
But yes, otherwise a good game from him.
Don’t think Pepe on the left will stick, but what about Willock at what looked like false 9? could that maybe become a thing, I mean he is strong, smooth on the ball, good finishing.
I kind of hope not. You pretty much have to be a genius level footballer to make false 9 work, and he’s still learning the ropes.
He does have the tools to be a genuine box to box CM though. I wish he’d spend more time behind the ball rather than in front of it though..
Does he have the tools? Arteta keeps playing him in attack…I think hes better close to the box, pouncing on loose balls going past defenders playing final pass.
What are you on about, mate?
good finishing?
We are miles apart from Liverpool and mancity in terms of squad depth and talent and that worries me a lot… Hopefully this issue is addressed when the transfer window opens.
Good win tho…
Not sure about depth. Liverpool bench not so impressive but starting XI light years ahead agreed. Arsenal need better quality starters.
I think Nelson should have been scored higher. Pressed and forced Van Dijk into an error for our first goal and he finished the second goal nicely. A lot of players wouldn’t have bothered pressing Van Dijk like that.
I DO NOT want to see another long ball from David Luiz. This is not Wimbledon and this is not the 80s. It’s embarassing.
often he holds onto the ball for so long by the time he is redy to release it a long pass is the only option. He slows us down so much by taking too many touches.
Not Wimbledon in the 80s? Then how do you explain Becker’s involvement?!?
He cannot be serious…l
Actually Boris is a big football fan but he supports Bayern and Chelsea so screw him.
Like a waitress in a cupboard.
Blimey, I gave above average for every rating… must be the total shock of winning this game.
Absolutely loved seeing Holding knock Mane over
I’m sure it will be said elsewhere, but why was Granit Xhaka’s tackle reviewed by VAR and not Alexander Arnold’s? To me, his was more dangerous than the red card received by Nketiah. Really starting to feel like we’re being punished more than most this season.
Because we’re varsenal
I really, really want Arteta to start a study on the behaviors that get fouls, yellow and red cards for us and the behaviors that get fouls, yellow and red cards that benefit us. Anecdotes mean nothing. Data, particularly data you can watch can mean something. I want a bleeding documentary with accompanying data sheets and video. Today Firmino behaved in a way, in their 1st half press, that would have gotten Laca a yellow. Trent-Arnold committed the same foul Nketiah did and received a yellow. Ceballos received a yellow for an aerial challenge that would not have been a… Read more »
Viz. Winks getting booked so late in the game against them that it looked like it was charity week. And Lo Celso missing out on a second booking despite a number of deliberate fouls post his first booking. We get it every week and, no,it “doesn’t even out over a season” – the most annoying fallacy in football..
They showed a repeat of Alexander Arnolds challenge and it looked very dangerous. I was waiting for them to review it with VAR but i wasnt suprised when they didnt do it. The officials are so inconsistent, sometimes I wonder if they won their license in a poker game. Lets hope Arteta will be brave enough to try and force them to change this bias agains us. Even tho this refereeing inconsistency is seen throughout the whole season, in every match, we always get the worst decisions, no matter if VAR reviews them or not.
What just happened? I am both elated and bewildered.
Can we clone Tierney. What a bit of stuff he is. Ideal for the third CB role against sterling. Also need him LWB but start him LCB against city. Great attitude composed tough ruthless total baller. Well done to Holding too and despite his mistake how mature and solid does Martinez look. No fears of crosses when he’s in goal. Really spoilt for choice in GK. Torreira and Dani are very good option but Hugh credit to Xhaka he played a real leaders role. Excellent stuff but of grit and cuteness to go down injured too. Love Reiss Nelson’s normal… Read more »
A leaders role? he plods around midfield giving away silly fouls because he cant tackle and is too slow. praying we sign a decent midfielder in the window so i dont have to watch xhaka for another season.
Bonus rating 10/10: Arteta teaching out players how to properly waste time (after many frustrating years of watching other teams do it to us)
Think Artetas’ post match comments were spot on- it’s been so long since I’ve seen our boys throw themselves in front of the ball to try and make blocks… and finally under Arteta they seem to be showing that 100% fight and commitment that is needed to compete in the PL. I do feel Tierney epitomises this, and that maybe this is also starting to rub off on some of the other players. However it was Artetas’ statement after which was so intriguing- Although I feel we do need to add in CB, RB, CM minimum, for him to very… Read more »
Nelson deserves a 7 at least I think. VVD wouldn’t be making that hospital pass if Nelson didn’t press him. Cool head for the game-winning goal too. Those two contributions alone should give him the same rating as someone like Aubameyang at least.
I’ve been a critic of Ceballos but have really been impressed by him. Great performances. We can turn this season around.
Credit to Nelson for making Virgil look like a fool
People as usual here getting a bit carried away with some of the ratings. We played an uncharacteristically careless Liverpool side in second gear and they still dominated us for most of the match. Had they wanted to, we would have proffered them plenty of opportunities to punish us more. As is, we got away with one. All the more galling since we did not bank the 3 points last match which would have brought us in on 56 pts and a shout at europe. As is, its still out of our hands and we are 9th albeit denying them… Read more »
Bore off with your with football essay
Three days ago we went a goal up and conceded two goals from silly errors. That was apparently acts tical triumph for Mourinho. Today we went a goal behind and came back to score two goals from silly errors that we forced. That was apparently down to Liverpool complacency after being crowned champions. No credit for us. Alan Smith, who knows a thing or two about beating Liverpool, says “Arsenal won’t know how they did it.” Here’s how, Smudger: massively improved defensive organisation, getting numbers behind the ball, denying the best attacking trio in the world space in the box,… Read more »
Despite being a new manager and this team being full of mediocrity Arteta has managed several big scalps even before the Lockdown.
Ever since the club team scribe posted a walk-off music meme to his mates that mocked the VVD song, the world’s greatest defender has been rattled and inattentive. It went:
He’ll pass the ball
Calm as u like
He’s Virgil Van Dyke
He’s actually Virgil Van Dijk
We’re the champions now. Thats it. End of season.
the more ceballos plays, the more he reminds me of flamini, but with a better eye for a pass. he can be a right dirty bastard when needed.
Wasn’t that Nelson’s first premier league goal? How calm he was on the finish and so nonchalant after he scored.
Big moment for him. Ceballos. auba and laca. Do they all leave?
Let’s hope they stay. We buy a star center back, a star holding mid and a box to box, creative midfielder. A Rosicky or a carzola that can push the pace and juke out of trouble.
I know. I know. But I can dream.
How about Nathan Ake, Said Benramha and Ollie Watkins, just for starters?
That was a remarkably terrible game of football. We did not do a thing other than fight and show resilience. That was the only positive everything else was complete sht. But that’s where we are right now as a club. We need a miracle against city.
It wasn’t pretty but that is what it takes to win against the best.
Take your chances when they come and defend like demons.
It was terrible indeed, but somehow hugely satisfying. I actually enjoyed it alot. Nailbiting stuff during the game, huge relief when it was over. Great feeling.
Holding. What a man’s man.
Sweet!
I absolutely loved the way Holding stood up to Mane. We need CBs with balls!
Anyone else feel more confident when EMI is in goal than Leno? He just looks more commanding and solid. Do not think Leno would have made that 95th min save
Don’t know about that, but I did like EMI bossing his defenders – late on when Luiz was going up for a corner he shouted “David No! where the fuck do you think you’re going” – something the whole team should shout out repeatedly during every game.
blaming that goal on soares leaving the right exposed seems like mispointing the finger – to me it was More Xhaka’s fault. He looked and saw that he should’ve dropped to mark Mane but by the split second he realized this they scored. Soares had holding and luiz behind him to mark Firmino and the incoming Robertson. Holding goes to Firmino who passes it to Robertson. When Luiz switched from Mane to close down Robertson, Xhaka should’ve taken Mane but got caught ball-watching and if you watch back the clip you see xhaka realize this too late to do anything… Read more »
I just cannot understand why AMN was left to out for Cedric. If he leaves it will be a big loss for the team. Baffled
Maybe AMN is being saved for FA Cup semifinal on Saturday?
I think he deserves a shot. Hope you’re right
Possible somebody’s mentioned it in the comments but even so, t’is worth repeating. Nelson got a goal and an assist last night. Quiet game?
I’m intrigues to see what ends up happening at GK – not sure whether or not realistically there’s anything Martonez can do to oust Leno, but the better he performs the more he’ll want it on a permanent basis. Plus if he starts getting a look in at international level he won’t want to go back to second string. Also pleased for Nelson to have gotten his goal. I often watch him and think he’s got all this talent, but often seems too wary of trying something for fear of getting it wrong – for me he just needs to… Read more »