Tag Archive for 'arsenal'

It was an excellent win at The Emirates today – the first win away at Arsenal for over 11 years. Dirk Kuyt and Martin Kelly took the places of Luis Suarez and John Flanagan; common sense considering Suarez was tired. Kelly and Kuyt are also very physically strong and big to give us an edge. And according to the commentators on BBC Radio 5Live, Liverpool did have the edge over Arsenal. I’d say it was a bit more than an edge and it was actually quite a dominant display with more possession, more passes and more shots. Even if we did just ‘edge’ it, you have to remember we were the away team. At Arsenal. Where we haven’t won for 11 years. We took the game to them and looked more like a dominant home team than the away team underdogs Arsenal played like.

Fair enough, Arsenal were missing Gervinho and Song through suspension but is that not their own fault? Koscielny also went off injured after 16 minutes but his replacement, Miquel, didn’t do much wrong, even if he did kick the ball onto Ramsey which subsequently bounced into the goal. Anyway, Liverpool were missing Suarez for most of the game, Gerrard and Johnson were recovering from injury along with Skrtel who was back on the bench today. Not to mention that player of pre-season, Alberto Aquilani, has mysteriously disappeared.

Frimpong was rightfully sent off and despite claims that the decisions went against Arsenal in Wenger’s usual moan after the game – “It looks like both goals were offside. The referees are (supposed to be) professional” – I’d disagree. Ramsey’s own goal maybe should have been disallowed but there was nothing wrong with the second goal. Suarez was in an offside position for the first goal when Meireles’ made the pass, but he didn’t once touch the ball. Therefore the argument is whether Suarez interfered with play and since he was putting Miquel under pressure, the goal maybe shouldn’t have stood. [edit: Graham Poll claims that interfering with play means touching the ball] Suarez was also in an offside position when Lucas passed the ball to Meireles for the second goal but at this point, Suarez was not interfering with play. By the time Meireles received the ball, Suarez had got himself into position to put away Meireles’ square ball. Liverpool were the better team and deserved the goals. It would have been unjust had Arsenal scored.

Anfield Index on twitter:

Carroll V AFC Pass Accuracy:77% Ground Duels Won: 55% Aerial Duels Won: 67% Accurate Flick on: 100% Accurate Lay Off: 100%

Henderson V AFC Pass Accuracy: 90% Forward: 41% Backwards: 27% Left: 10% Right: 22% Lost all Ground Duels.. (5)

Kelly V AFC Pass Accuracy 78% Tackles Won: 100% Ground Duels won: 42% Aerial Duels won: 0% (only had 1)

Lucas V AFC Pass Accuracy: 87% Tackles won: 67% (8/12) Ground Duels won: 75% (15/20) Aerial Duels won: 50%

Adam V AFC Pass %: 81 Tackles Won: 100% (5/5) Ground Duels Won: 75% (9/12) Aerial Duels Won: 100% (1/1) Cross Accuracy: 50%

And here is a comparison of today’s game with the same fixture last season thanks to Anfield Index.

Jose Enrique was fantastic going forward as well as defending. Henderson looked sharp with 90% passing accuracy. He looks like a proper pass and move player – good one touch passing followed by instant movement creating space – and he’s still got many years to develop. Carroll did a good job of wearing out the centre backs for Suarez to terrorize when he came on. Adam was really good today with some sublime passing; you know his confidence is high when he is taking shots from the halfway line!

Speaking of shots, Arsenal took a lot more from outside the box than we would expect them to. We’re used to seeing them pass the ball hundreds of times inside the box before tapping it over the line. Is this due to Arsenal being poor or Liverpool’s tactics?

So today’s game showed the highest percentage of shots outside the box for the past four seasons in this fixture. In fact, you have to go back to the 07/08 season to find the last time Arsenal had more shots outside the box than inside the box at home against Liverpool. 58.3% of Arsenal’s shots today were outside the box compared to 31.25%, 41.6% and 33.3% in the 10/11, 09/10 and 08/09 seasons respectively. Quite a gap.

Liverpool’s defending was very good today and rather than pressuring Arsenal, the back four appeared to drop off and waited for Adam and Lucas to put in a tackle. This can often be risky as it leaves the opposition with a lot of space to run into but with two holding midfielders (and the hard-working Kuyt tracking back), Liverpool limited Arsenal’s chances. Obviously when the midfielders don’t get back in time, Arsenal could have scored a spectacular long-ranger but Reina was reasonably comfortable and the defence wasn’t too stretched. If the centre backs had stepped up and missed a tackle, Arsenal would have exploited the space with swift pass and move football so it was vital they held their position.

Up the other end of the pitch Liverpool had a much more controlled and steady tempo compared to last week’s first half against Sunderland. Still, the movement was excellent and Henderson, Kuyt, Downing were in constant rotation. The versatility of the three came in useful as they popped up on the left, on the right and through the middle, stretching Arsenal’s defence. Carroll pushed up on the Arsenal centre half pairing allowing for the flowing movement behind him. I was extremely impressed with the intelligent runs of Downing and Henderson in particular.

Overall, a very encouraging performance but unlike last week, an encouraging result to go with it. Let’s see how long we can keep it up for.