Outplayed by a better football team

04.04.2021

Arsenal received a reality check against Liverpool yesterday.

Written by David Schill

So, where do we start?

Last night's performance was really unacceptable. Very far from good. Liverpool totally dominated us, from start to finish unfortunately. Looking at the lineup ahead of the game, I felt quite confident to be honest. But starting the three most expensive players in Arsenal's history, Auba, Laca and Pepe, turned out to be completely wrong. No signs of creativity, fight or dangerousness. In my opinion, Martinelli should have started instead of Auba or Pepe. I can understand why Laca continues to start games. He's our top scorer so far this season and has played really well recently. But we all know that Auba and Pepe (especially Auba) have a tendency to totally disappear in these big games, and therefore Martinelli would have been a better fit thanks to his working ability and creativity according to me.

It's also important to not forget that we had some key players who missed the game yesterday. Both Smith-Rowe and Saka had some late fitness tests, but were not fit enough to be in the squad. Xhaka was ill while Luiz had some problems with his knee and could be out for a few weeks apparently. But as Arteta said at the press conference last night, there are no excuses just because some players are missing the game. Arteta claimed that he hates excuses and that he is the one fully responsible for the loss, which I like to hear from him. But you can't just talk wisely all the time, we need to perform on the pitch!

If we're looking at our next couple of games in the Premier League, we should be optimistic. Next Sunday we face Sheffield United away from home. That has to be three points, no matter what. Then we have Fulham at home, a game we should dominate and grab all the three points. After that, we play against Everton, Newcastle, West Brom, Chelsea, Palace and lastly Brighton. So decent fixtures are ahead of us, but every game will be tough of course.

Let's forget the loss last night against Liverpool and focus on the upcoming game this week: Arsenal vs Slavia Prague in the quarter-finals of the Europa League. Massive game and a crucial moment for us to bounce back after the disappointing result and performance against LFC.

There is no room for mistakes on Thursday night. We really have to get a good result in this first leg so we have the advantage going into the second leg against the Czech Republic side. We also play at home on Thursday which means that Slavia Prague most likely will try to take advantage of scoring away goals, which could be very important for them.

That's it for this blog post. Hope you enjoyed it.

COYG!