By Alfred the Great
You may already have noticed from newspaper reports that revel in such matters that Arsenal have not won a league match at Anfield since Boudica was queen of England which is why I have been invited to write this column today.
The last time Arsenal beat the so-called Reds (as if no one else played in that colour) was in September 2012. And the story doing the rounds is that having lost to Fleetwood Town recently, there is no chance whatsoever of Arsenal keeping a clean sheet or scoring a single goal.
Indeed the local Liverpudlian newspapers are going wild with over excitement at the prospect of an all time record score in this match. The This is Anfield website for example saying, “Liverpool are undefeated in the last 13 league meetings against Arsenal at Anfield, winning eight times in the process.” Their prognosis is that “If they avoid defeat this time, the Reds will set a new club record of 14 at home without defeat against the Gunners.”
It is an interesting point and one that makes the history of the game seemingly more relevant than the actual games themselves, wherein, as you may have noticed Arsenal are second with the same number of points as the Mancs. For if the game is a draw, Arsenal are top of the league while seemingly Liverpool will celebrate not being beaten. If Arsenal win they will be even topper of the league, if you see what I mean.
Yet it seems that for some Liverpudlians beating Arsenal is more important than winning the league, and this we can understand since that is the attitude Tottenham have. What’s more Liverpool only seem to have won the Premier League twice, while Arsenal appear to have won it four times. (You might want to check those numbers since I just copied them off the internet). Anyway here is the league table…
| P | W | D | L | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Manchester City
|
9 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 21 |
|
Arsenal
|
8 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 21 |
|
Brighton and Hove Albion
|
9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 17 | 19 |
|
Chelsea
|
9 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 16 |
|
Liverpool
|
8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 15 |
For Brighton to stop City scoring and for the Albion to win at the Etihad was a notable feat and hinted at the growing status of seaside towns as contenders for Champions League football next season.
But what is interesting overall is that Haaland seems to have gone off the boil somewhat. He had a couple of chances in that last game but really didn’t seem to be that interested in making things work. But then I suppose you get that if you live up north and work for a northern team. Or find your club having 115 charges brought against you and denying that you live in that reality.
Except come to think of it he is Norwegian so maybe he has just been missing the northern lights. It’s hard to tell.
Anyway enough of others, our team is predicted by the Standard to be
Raya;
Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Rice, Guimaraes;
Madueke, Odegaard, Eze;
Havertz
Now you can see that this report above has Raya in goal, and he has said he feels fine, but not all agree. Football Lineups take a while try to persuade me to buy an engagement ring (for which I think I am getting a bit too old) before they give us a link up which is not divided into positions. When that happens I normally do the dividing up myself, but this time I am a bit confused so I leave it for you…
Meslier, Salmon, Lewis-Skelly, Cristhian Mosquera, Hincapié, Timber, Zubimendi, Gyökeres, Dowman, O’Neill, Havertz. Downman, you may have noted, is suspended – or did I miss the fact that his suspension is suspended? No, that can’t be. He’s suspended and Arteta is boiling.
Moving on, Sports Illustrated offer us
Raya;
White, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Guimarães, Rice;
Madueke, Ødegaard, Eze;
Havertz.
And so I think we can say it will be something along these lines. As we have noted, a win or a draw takes Arsenal top of the league. Now, just to remind you, last season Arsenal won just over 68% of their games and scored 1.87 goals a game. This season Arsenal have won 87.5% of their games so far and scored 2.625 goals per game, both of which look like improvements to me. I would say you could check this with the newspapers, but I don’t think they go in for this sort of thing. (By which I mean things that show us how good Arsenal have been).
Anyway, we’ll know soon enough…
.
