The Gunners fired themselves past nervy Liverpool as they win 3-2 to clinch back top spot from on fire Manchester City.
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have been flying high as they rushed to scoring with just 58 seconds of the start of first half registering an important win over Liverpool thereafter. Gabriel Martinelli opened the sheet after a swift counter attack that saw the Brazilian convert a fierce shot past fellow countryman Alison Becker. Bukayo Saka capitalized on Thiago Alcantara’s error to spot Martin Odegard whom with his abilities and technicality splitting the Reds midfield with a sumptuous pass to find Martinelli on the left flank.
The strange first half saw Liverpool dominate but they couldn’t turn the fine tune they have been for the past years under Jurgen Klopp. Klopp’s men showed flashes of form with their opening goal as Trent Alexander Arnold swerved an overhead pass to Luiz Diaz who timed his run and squared his pass across Gunners goal for Darwin Nunez to sweep it home for Liverpool equalizer.
A good part of the half saw Liverpool press on Arsenal with their new 4-5-1 formation. Diaz was denied a penalty shout out after his attempt to overhead reverse control landed the ball into the hands of Gabriel Maghlaes as the referee waved play on.
The game turned sour for Liverpool after another swift counter attack by Arsenal set on Saka to break the tie 2-1 at half time. The red’s once again were forced to come from behind and level score through Boby Firmino. The second half Brazilian substitute reached for the far corner having found a nick pass from Diogo Jota as he calmly slotted the ball home.
Arsenal completed their win by through a penalty after Thiago was charged for fouling Gabriel Jesus inside the eighteen yard box. Saka rounded his brace as he converted the penalty witb some pace despite Alison going the right direction. The win was vital to Arteta as this could be the game changer towards their persuit to being crowned champions this season. Talking to press in his post match conference, he said “The feeling of winning it’s so powerful and so meaningful for me because I saw a team that I feel I really identify with, the personality they show in difficult moments, how they stick to what they have to do, and at the same time they believe they have the courage and the free mind to just go for it and attack them and put them under pressure.”
The win over Liverpool piled more misery to Klopp and his team as this is the worst form shown after 8 games played in over a decade and under Klopp’s erra. The Red’s have managed 10 points so far and problems seems to mount up for the former European giants as they sit at tge bottom half of the premier league table. Trent Alexander Arnold and Luiz Diaz are waiting for scans over the knocks they picked during the game and might be sidelined for a longer period adding themselves to the growing injury list that Liverpool already are bearing.
Klopp in his post match interview siad, “1-0 down, really bad start but started controlling the game, played a really good game against a very aggressive, full-of-confidence Arsenal side. But we really showed that we are here for a reason. We scored the equaliser, a wonderful goal, great play and open game, could go either way I think with advantages for us, more possession, more finishes, these kind of things. Then we make a bad decision before half-time with the free-kick and that’s the situation where you ignore a free-kick – I’m completely guilty for that. That’s an excuse from my side, you can say I was surprised… ‘Yeah, what are we doing?’ But then the boys are convinced, ‘Let’s score a goal.’ But we didn’t, we conceded one on the other end. Like after the worst possible start, now we had the worst possible end to the first half.”
“I told the boys that we have to try to obviously cut off the two goals and build on the good stuff. But that means you have to play football again and that’s what we didn’t do. Yes, Arsenal came out again very aggressive, man v man against Hendo and Thiago, but we were not flexible enough anymore in the front line – so didn’t drop in the right moments, didn’t offer half-spaces, apart from the goal from where we did that obviously particularly well. Then we scored the equaliser and now it’s a really open game I think with, again, a slight advantage for us but then the penalty happens,” he added.
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