- Liverpool v Arsenal – what happened of late?
- Liverpool v Arsenal: how reputations dominate the pre-match commentary
By Tony Attwood
From 1990 onwards Liverpool have won the league twice. From the same point Arsenal have won the league in three times – including of course 1990 itself. But the general perception seems to be that somehow Liverpool is the stronger club – even when we are measuring success over a 36 year period.
Of course we could say that winning the league was too narrow a measurement, and we should look at another competition as well. And when we do we find that Arsenal has won the FA Cup nine times during this period. Liverpool have won it four times. So again Arsenal seems to be the stronger side through this era.
The league table last season is undoubtedly familiar to you so I won’t republish it all, save to say that Arsenal won the league on 85 points while Liverpool came fifth with 60 points. Quite a difference – and there was also a solid difference in the goals scored.
Of course most of the games between the two clubs have been captured on camera, since for TV companies for many years the rule has been “if it is Liverpool we must film the match”. This seems to derive from the notion that football supporters across the country wanted to watch Liverpool, although there was no real evidence for this. Interestingly, a similar perception concerning Manchester City failed to take hold, and it is noticeable that since the accusations of match fixing by ManC arose, the number of games that are filmed for TV has declined.
But if you want to watch some of these games then click here and you’ll have a massive choice.
Now we have already done a bit of comparing between Liverpool and Arsenal, and we have noted that last season Liverpool finished fifth in the Premier League. Not a bad position, and one that the club reached recently, as for example in 2023. And to be fair they haven’t slipped lower in all the seasons before that since 2016.
So this looks like a good run for Liverpool, until we take a look at the goals they scored. If we check back from 2016/17 onwards their goals scored are in the 70s and 80s with just one season slipping down to 68 goals that in 2020/21. But then they recovered at once and were back to 2024/25 when they scored 86.
But then last season they knocked in just 63. So for ten seasons they have been kncoking in the 70+ or 80+ goals almost every season and then suddenly last season they dropped down to 63.
Now we all know Liverpool have been above Arsenal for a number of years, but Arsenal regained their goal scoring ability in 2023/24. Better still Arsenal have been building their defence while getting an ever firmer grip on defence.
As things stand Arsenal have a goal difference of +8 as opposed to +3 for Liverpool. Last season Arsenal had a goal difference of +44 compared with Liverpool’s +10.
We can also compare team values through information supplied by Transfermarkt and they tell us that at present Manchester City, not surprisingly, have a team valued at €1.5 billion. Arsenal is just below this at around €1.4 billion, with Chelsea in third place valued at €1.2 billion and Liverpool in fourth with a valuation of around €1.1 billion – which gives Arsenal a valuation over a quarter more than that of the Liverpool squad. The implication is that rebuilding their team to climb back to the top is going to be particularly costly for Liverpool and so far they have been trying to cut a few corners by keeping slightly cheaper players when they make a purchase.
The tables below show various ways of comparing the progress of the two clubs. These are the sorts of analysis that the backroom staff at clubs present and which the more mathematically able managers use to see where they need to bolster their team.
2025/6 after 38 ganes
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal 2025/6 | 38 | 26 | 7 | 5 | 71 | 27 | +44 | 85 |
| Arsenal % 2025.6 | 68% | 18% | 13% | 1.87pg | 0.71pg | +1.16pg | 2.24pg | ||
| 5 | Liverpool2025/6 | 38 | 17 | 9 | 12 | 63 | 53 | +10 | 60 |
| Liverpool % 2025.6 | 45% | 24% | 32% | 1.66pg | 1.39pg | +0.27pgs | 1.58pg |
2026/7 after 8 games
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal 2026/7 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 21 |
| Arsenal 2026/7 | 87.5% | 0 | 12.5% | 16.25pg | 0.625pg | +1.00pg | 2.63pg | ||
| 5 | Liverpool 26/7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 15 |
| Liverpool 26/7 | 50% | 37.5% | 12.5% | 1.37pg | 1.00pg | 0,37pg5 | 1.875pg |
These figures show that after eight games both Arsenal and Liverpool are performing along the same lines of success as they achieved last season, through the whole campaign. And this might be worrying for Liverpool since they appeared to have the highest net spend of any Premier League club in the summer of 2026 – although of course it might be that the players are taking a while to settle in.
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