The Fear
"Finals are played in May, we don't have any finals today!", said Mikel Arteta after last Saturday's win against Leeds. Nevertheless, people connected with Arsenal could be forgiven for peddling that old cliché as the Premier League run-in picks up speed. Since losing what really did feel like a cup final back in February, to Manchester City - the culmination of a run that saw them win just two of their first six league games in 2023 - the gunners have enjoyed their longest winning run (seven games) in the Premier League since October 2018, in the early days of Unai Emery's tenure. *Gulps*. Aside from that return showdown at the Etihad on April 26, it Sunday's trip to Anfield that has loomed largest on the calendar.
Pencilling in the game at Anfield as the one of utmost concern may come across as somewhat illogical. Arsenal still have to go to St James's Park to face a high-flying Newcastle side buoyed by thrilling football and dirty money – almost a year on from having their top four dreams shattered into a million pieces on a chastening Monday night on the Tyne. They host top four chasing Brighton the following weekend. They welcome Frank Lampard's Chelsea (lol) to the Emirates just days after the title showdown with City. They travel to Nottingham to face a Forest side who will be likely fighting for their lives on the penultimate weekend of the season. Arsenal lost all these games last season, albeit with one of those coming in the FA Cup, scoring just one goal.
And yet, it is Easter Sunday's game against the team sitting in eighth, four points above the bottom half, who last won a league game over a month ago, that strikes fear into the hearts of Arsenal fans.
For much of this season, a lot of the analysis, not just surrounding Arsenal and the title race, but also Manchester United and Antonio Conte - has been based on historical analysis.
Negative forecasts about Arsenal's prospects at Anfield come from the same school of thought. When Arsenal last avoided defeat in the league on red half of Merseyside, Mikel Arteta came on as a second half substitute. He had barely been at the club for a year the last time the gunners won there in early September 2012. Bar the City Ground, where Arsenal haven't played a league game this century, there is no other Premier League ground where Arsenal have waited longer for their last win, nor their last point, than Anfield.
The British football media, generally speaking, have a strange infatuation with intangibles when it comes to how they analyse the game, just listen to Roy Keane after any given Manchester United defeat and he will talk about abstract concepts like "wanting it more". At times, pure mythology can seep into the analysis. No place in English football is steeped in mythology more than Anfield and its atmosphere. Even Mikel Arteta was willing to indulge it. In front of the Amazon cameras ahead of last season's trip to Merseyside, he spoke of the "pajara" – a Spanish word that describes when players freeze in the face of a hostile atmosphere.
"I had it once at Anfield that the game was going there and suddenly I could only see red shirts flying around, the game is passing all over me and I cannot react…I only had that feeling in my career once and it was at Anfield."
Arteta's record as a visiting player at Anfield, in reality, wasn't too bad. Arsenal's two most recent victories there came with Arteta in the starting XI, both in 2012. In fact he only lost once there - a 5-1 demolition in a lunchtime kickoff in February 2014 that loss saw Arsenal knocked off the top of the table having led the league from September of that season. They never returned to top spot, eventually finishing fourth. Dropping points to a title rival was one thing, but the psychological cost of an inexperienced team in terms of challenging for titles going four goals down inside the first twenty minutes to a side that they were supposed to be competing with, made the defeat even more chastening. It is not surprising that such a bruising afternoon, the first of an ongoing run of nine games without a win on the red side of Stanley Park, is seared into Arteta's mind.
Arsenal’s Premier League Results At Anfield Since 2014
Even as I write this article now, reader, I feel bogged down by the weight of history when it comes to Arsenal's past travails at Anfield.
It is worth pointing out that some of my trepidation transcends analysis based on historical results of yesteryear. For all of Liverpool's woes this season, the majority of the results that have marked their decline have come away from home. Anfield, if not quite the fortress it was from 17/18 to 21/22 (covid football notwithstanding), has shielded them from the worst of the results which have seen them go from chasing the quadruple to rubbing shoulders with Aston Villa and Brentford. They have lost the same amount of league games at home this season as Arsenal (one), they have dropped just two more points and haven't conceded a (league) goal there this year. The last team to visit were Manchester United, I can't quite remember how that game went, but I'm sure someone can tell me. *Swigs can of 7-Up*.
In spite of all evidence that I have given to the contrary – Liverpool and Anfield are not an infallible combination. The league game Liverpool did lose there this season – the first they lost in the league in front of a crowd in over five-and a half years - came against Leeds United. The very same Leeds United that currently sit just two points outside the relegation zone, whom Arsenal dispatched with consummate ease at the weekend in a 4-1 win. There will be a reunion with Leandro Trossard, who scored a perfect hattrick for Brighton as the Seagulls claimed a 3-3 draw back in October. Relegation threatened Crystal Palace earned a point there at the start of the season. In their Champions League round of 16 tie, they suffered the kind of humiliating capitulation that would be associated with Arsenal teams of the past, as a 2-0 lead against Real Madrid swiftly became a 5-2 defeat.
Arsenal's two visits to Anfield last season were a source of some encouragement, even if one of those did end in a 4-0 defeat. In the wake of that game, an Arsenal writer was derided for saying that the defeat suffered by Arsenal "didn't feel like their usual Anfield drubbing" (I am paraphrasing here, the article in question appears to have since been deleted), but there were merits to the argument. Arsenal made a strong start to the game, keeping their illustrious opponents at arms-length and providing a threat on the counter. It wasn't exactly scintillating, but they acquitted themselves extremely well for the first 30 minutes. Reacquainting ourselves with our old friend the intangibles, Arsenal's downfall in that game can be pinpointed to a first-half flashpoint in which tempers frayed between Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp on the touchline. This was tantamount to poking a bear, as the Anfield crowd awoke from their slumber and Liverpool duly opened the scoring minutes after the incident. Arsenal went into the break 1-0 down, conceded early in the second half after a moment of inexperience from Nuno Tavares, and the match was over as a contest.
A couple of months later in the first leg of a Carabao Cup semi-final, Arsenal put in a performance – of sorts – and came away with a result to back it up. Cobbling together a lineup from a squad that was already down to the barebones, Arsenal's task became formidable when they were reduced to ten men midway through the first half after Granit Xhaka scythed down Diogo Jota. What Arsenal had to produce on that January night was far from something that provided a blueprint for the free-flowing and all-conquering Arteta-ball that we see today, but Arsenal gained a lot by sharpening up a more agricultural side to their game. As Arteta put it, his players had to "go to war" that night. Showing the mental resilience to keep themselves in the tie and avoid defeat by claiming a 0-0 draw at a ground where they have so often found themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle at 11 vs 11, was an experience they could draw on when closing out narrow victories (a 1-0 success at Villa park in March 2022 comes to mind) in the subsequent months. If Arsenal find themselves having to defend a narrow lead come the closing stages on Sunday, they will not have to look too far back for inspiration.
Of course, playing Liverpool at Anfield last season was a different proposition entirely – one that focused on keeping the opposition at bay above anything else. Fast-forward to the present day, and the tables have turned (to the effect of a 52 point swing, to be precise). Beating Liverpool in the reverse fixture at the Emirates in October was one of a catalogue of historically based psychological hurdles that Arsenal have cleared this season. That game was seen as the first true test as to what Arsenal's ambitions for the season could be, and to what extent Liverpool's stuttering start was part of a mere blip; or something that precipitated a steeper decline. A glance at the league table now proves pretty conclusive in regards to answering both of those questions.
There are other hoodoos that Arsenal have shaken: coasting to a 3-0 win at Brentford 11 months on from being humiliated in front of the watching world in last season's opener. They won a first away North London Derby in nine years in January, banishing the demons of that season-defining 3-0 defeat in May. They got revenge on Manchester United in dramatic fashion a week later after Erik Ten Hag had inflicted the Gunners first (and at the time only) defeat of the campaign back in September. They have come from behind to win on five occasions, most recently in pulsating fashion against Bournemouth last month. Last season, they achieved this feat just once across the entire campaign.
What we have seen so far this season, is that analysis based on historical results does not hold much water when it comes to predicting the outcomes of Arsenal games.
The irony of all this focus on Liverpool, is that Arsenal haven't gotten where they are this season by worrying about the opposition. Liverpool should fear hosting Arsenal far more than Arsenal should worry about facing a team that currently sit outside the European qualifying places. If anything, Ødegaard, Xhaka and co. should be licking their lips at going toe-to-toe with a midfield that appears to have lost the ability to do any sort of sustained running after multiple seasons of playing at full-pelt. Looking at Liverpool's PPDA (passes per defensive action), which is a good way of measuring the intensity, if not the efficacy, of a team's press, their numbers are down from 9.95 (p90) last season to 11.64 this season. Incidentally, they are sandwiched in between Arsenal (11.19) and Manchester City (11.69), ranking sixth in the league overall [data via Soccerment]. This is a significant decline for a side who built an identity as pressing monsters under Klopp. There is a feeling that this Liverpool team have hit something of an age curve, perhaps Klopp resting a number of key starters for Tuesday's trip to Stamford Bridge was a tacit admission that stalwarts like Mo Salah (30), Andy Robertson (29) and Virgil Van Dijk (31) cannot handle playing three big games in a week.
You cannot Anfield aura and vibes your way around an unarresting physical decline.
Will Arsenal fear facing Cody Gakpo, who has failed to score in 13 of his 16 appearances since arriving at the club in January? Or €100m man Darwin Nunez, yet to notch double figures in terms of league goals this season? How will Trent Alexander Arnold, who resorted to performatively chasing down players on the opposite side of the pitch to the traditional right back position – surely not under tactical instruction from his manager – feel about facing Gabriel Martinelli, a player that has a knack of running his man ragged in games against Liverpool – just ask Klopp. How will Andy Robertson, who's overly-proactive approach to defending was something City were able to exploit time and again at the weekend as the Scot pushing up the pitch left vast amounts of space behind him, cope with one the most in-form forwards in world football in Bukayo Saka?
If Arsenal look at the history and buy into the narrative, they can work themselves up into thinking that Anfield will be not only one of the toughest tests of the season so far, but perhaps an insurmountable one. But if they go there and play their own game; blending the burning "fire" within them that Pep Guardiola referenced back in January, with a cold-blooded assuredness that has seen them rack up seven wins in a row - barely breaking sweat for large swathes of that run, they may have nothing to worry about. Unsurprisingly, it is Arteta that puts it best, "something you need to have is courage, courage to play, courage to impose yourself in the game and be dominant, and on Sunday, we'll try to beat that team". If they can do that, they will be a maximum of seven wins away from [REDACTED].