The Gunners dropped valuable points from a winning position at Anfield, leaving the reigning champions smelling blood
Arsenal have been fantastic this season, there is certainly no doubt about that. They have exceeded all expectations under Mikel Arteta, who has built one of the most exciting squads in Europe while sticking to his core principles in admirable fashion.
But they are not quite ready to win the Premier League. Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool was the latest reminder of that, as they let a two-goal lead slip in front of a raucous Anfield crowd and ended up being lucky to escape with a point.
The Gunners are now just six points clear of Manchester City having played a game more, and still have a blockbuster trip to the Etihad Stadium on the horizon.
Mental fragility held the Gunners back throughout the second half of Arsene Wenger’s reign at the club, and Arteta deserves huge credit for bucking that trend. However, his side are now in uncharted waters.
City are used to the pressure of getting results when it matters most; they thrive on it, and will not relent in their pursuit of a fifth title in six years.
Arsenal will ultimately be unable to hold off Pep Guardiola’s side, and GOAL has examined the main reasons why.
Lack of experience
Everywhere you look in City’s squad there are serial winners. The likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and John Stones have all been here before.
Guardiola’s men know how to raise their game when the stakes are highest, and they are driven by a desire to break records while maintaining their dominance of the English football landscape.
Arsenal have two former City stars in their ranks that have the same mindset, with Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko both having played key roles in their charge for the top-flight crown.
But the rest of the Gunners squad lacks experience at this level. Their three standout performers – Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard – are running on pure adrenaline at this point.
The Haaland factor
Martinelli is currently Arsenal’s top scorer for the season in the Premier League with 14 goals – a highly respectable career-best tally for the Brazilian winger.
Saka has 13 to his name and Odegaard is on 10, while Jesus would almost certainly have been in double-figures too were it not for the knee injury that kept him out of action for three months after the World Cup.
But they don’t have anyone that comes close to Erling Haaland.
City’s terminator scored his 29th and 30th Premier League goals in the 4-1 rout of Southampton on Saturday, bringing his overall total for the season across all competitions to 44 – the joint-most for an English club in a single campaign alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mohamed Salah.
Haaland will inevitably break Salah’s record for the most goals in a Premier League season (34) and could go well past the 50 mark by the time his debut year at the Etihad Stadium is over.
He is quite simply, the most lethal striker in world football, and his presence gives City an advantage in any game.
Hot-headed Xhaka
“You have to show a little bit of fight, but there’s a time when to poke the bear and to leave the bear sleeping. He poked it at the wrong time.”
Manchester United legend Roy Keane aptly summed up in the Sky Sports studio why Granit Xhaka’s angry outburst at Anfield ultimately cost Arsenal all three points against Liverpool.
The Gunners were 2-0 up and in complete control before the Switzerland international decided to square up to Trent Alexander-Arnold after failing to win a foul. He thrust his elbow and butted heads with the Reds full-back before both sets of players rushed in to separate the pair, who were subsequently shown yellow cards.
The incident sparked the Anfield crowd into life, Salah halved the deficit moments later and Liverpool eventually secured a hard-earned point.
Xhaka’s contribution to Arsenal’s cause has been immense this term, but he is still prone to moments of madness like this.
Guardiola is still the master
Arteta spent three years learning his trade as a coach alongside the best in the business at the Etihad Stadium.
The Spaniard absorbed as much as he could from Guardiola while serving as his assistant before going out on his own at Arsenal in 2019. He was unable to deliver instant success at Emirates Stadium, in the same way that Guardiola did at Barcelona back in 2008-09, but the Gunners are now reaping the rewards for their patience.
City’s head coach played down his influence on Arteta’s career back in October, telling reporters: “I’d like to say a lot (of City influence at the Emirates) but I’d lie to you. Maybe I learned more off him than he did off me when we worked together.”
The truth is that Guardiola was just being modest. He remains the master and his apprentice has a long way to go before he can be mentioned in the same breath.
Tougher run-in
City have some challenging fixtures still to come aside from their clash with Arsenal, including away games against Fulham, Brentford and Brighton, but no one would be surprised if they picked up maximum points through to the end of the season.
They’ve done it before, and have the squad depth to juggle Champions League and FA Cup commitments alongside their title challenge without a hitch.
Arsenal have only the league to focus on, which adds more pressure. They travel to a relegation-threatened West Ham for a London derby clash next, before welcoming bottom-of-the-table Southampton to the Emirates.
Arteta’s side must win both of those games before facing City, and they need a positive result at the Etihad to set them up for the three fixtures that could define their season.
The Gunners will host Chelsea at the end of April before taking on Champions League-chasing Newcastle at St James’ Park and facing Brighton at the Emirates – with Roberto De Zerbi’s side also in with an outside chance of a top-four finish.
Source: Ghana Web