Liverpool Review: Are Arsenal slowly losing their grip on the title race?

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·28 de outubro de 2024

Liverpool Review: Are Arsenal slowly losing their grip on the title race?

Are Arsenal slowly losing their grip on the title race?

Yesterday Arsenal were pushed back in their early pursuit of the Premier League title.

Vídeos OneFootball

After being vulnerable at the back and showing a display of lacklustre defending, Mikel Arteta’s Gunners were held to a 2-2 draw with Liverpool above them in second in the League.

However the game started brightly for the North Londoner’s, within the opening ten minutes Bukayo Saka gifted Arsenal the opener. Ben White sent a cracking ball down the right wing for his fellow Englishman (the relied upon goalscorer and assister at times), before he belted the ball into the top left corner of Kelleher’s net from an acute angle inside the area.

Within ten minutes Liverpool had found a way back into the game, Virgil Van Dijk flicked in a Luiz Diaz corner with his head beating the lost hands of David Raya.

Before halftime, the Gunners reinstated their hold on the game which would not last the remainder of the duel! Declan Rice delivered a fireball of a free-kick into the box before Mikel Merino scored his first goal in Arsenal colours sending a dominant header into the far side of the visitor’s goal, 2-1 it was with 60,383 fans reverberating around the stadium. Most with joy, some with sorrow!

Inside the 81st minute a frustrated Liverpool got the last laugh with a final say in one of the most anticipated games of the season. Mohamed Salah, the “Egyptian God” as called by those on the red side of Merseyside, beat Raya to his nearest post from the centre of the box.

A disheartened Arteta said to BBC Sport after the match:” Very disappointing not to win it because if you look at the big chances we generated and decisions and what we did in the game I think we should have won the game.”

Arsenals now find themselves third on 18 points, five adrift of Manchester City top of the Premier League table on 23 points.

The Gunners were already four points off Liverpool who were at the time in charge of the league last week after eight match days, they might be only one more point off City who have taken over from The Reds, but let’s not forget we lost the league last season by only two points. That was the difference between us having the chance to lift our first title in 20 years and not in which we fell to the latter late on.

If we hadn’t have drawn yesterday, lost to Bournemouth disgracefully last week by 2-0 at The Vitality Stadium and beaten Manchester City away without conceding another late equaliser (2-2) we could’ve been in first place with an already two point gap over The Citizens, but that’s not the case.

Things don’t look much more promising for Arsenal on the field either going forward following injuries from two of our crucial defenders.

Gabriel as well as Jurrien Timber came off the pitch in the second half making our defensive woes increasingly worse.

Towards the start of the second half Gabriel was made to come off with what looked like a knee injury, later on in the game Timber left the field after 70 minutes going down for the second and most concerning time with seemingly cramp.

On top of this our captain Martin Odegaard is still out of action since the first International break in September and is due to return not until December as currently speculated.

When quizzed about his two defenders being subbed off in the second half Arteta reflected:” I don’t know what the injury is but he can’t run. I don’t know if it was his knee or his ankle. He is being assessed right now.” (This was in relation to Gabriel).

Arteta was then asked about Timber, declaring: ”He was so willing. The team and the medical staff have done a great job. We have ourselves the chance to compete.

“I don’t know the extent of the injury if there is one. The same with big Gabi.”

Regardless of whether Timber has as severe of an injury as “big Gabi” it’s definitely not something that Arteta would like to have on his plate, knowing that it won’t be easy at Newcastle on Saturday who have only lost at home twice all year!

Liam Harding

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