A late Diogo Jota goal capped a 3-1 win for Liverpool at Anfield to end a mixed night for Arsenal in the first of two visits to the red side of Merseyside this week. 

  • The game in a nutshell

The Gunners’ opened the scoring against the run of play, as Alexandre Lacazette continued his run of scoring form to capitalise on an Andy Robertson error. The goal was scored in a similar vein, Arsenal catching their opponents on the counter attack and exploiting the wings. 

The Arsenal lead lasted less than three minutes, as Mo Salah knocked the ball past Kieran Tierney, and his effort was parried by Bernd Leno into the path of Sadio Mane who tapped in from close range into an empty net.

Mane’s position on the pitch has been questioned by Arsenal fans, after the Liverpool stars’ out swung arm connected with Tierney’s’ face after two minutes.

Mane only received a yellow card and went onto perform strongly. Liverpool turned the tie on its head six minutes later as Robertson made up for his costly mistake to give Liverpool the lead, again from close range. 

The second half continued in a very similar vein to the first half, Arsenal letting Liverpool come at them and try to hit on the counter.

The visitors created more openings, Lacazette spurning the best of them with a poor shot straight at Alisson, and substitute Nicholas Pepe failing to trouble the Liverpool defence with some outrageously poor corners. 

New sigining, Jota, scored his first Liverpool goal with two minutes of normal time left to play, after a defensive error from David Luiz put the ball straight into the path of Jota.

His volley from the edge of the box caught Bellerin off guard and nestled into the bottom left hand corner. 

  • Alexandre Lacazette – Back to his best?

Alex Lacazette scored for the third successive Premier League game and is showing signs of promise. Lacazette struggled last season and has been overshadowed by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang since the Gabon international arrived at Emirates Stadium.

Lacazette did miss two good chances, one of which ended up being offside, the Frenchman can take some positives out of his performance on Monday night. 

  • Signs of the right mentality

Although Arsenal lost the game, by taking the lead and restricting Liverpool dominance in the second half, Mikel Arteta and his side can be reasonably content with their efforts at Anfield.

A ground that historically Arsenal have left feeling rather embarrassed, and the ability to stay in the tie until the 89th minute is respectable. The Gunners’ still played their style of football and offered more of a challenge to a Liverpool side who haven’t lost at Anfield since 2017.

  • Underlying defensive issues

Gunners’ fans where rather surprised when the line-ups were announced that new centre-back arrival Gabriel was dropped from the starting XI, considering his debut goal and impressive performances since his move from Lille.

David Luiz and Rob Holding are both centre halves that demonstrated some rocky moments during the game. Hector Bellerin also offered a nervous looking performance and struggled against Sadio Mane. 

 

  • Mo Elneny, the right man?

Arsenal fans haven’t been short of praise for Arteta since his arrival in December, but his choices both with the starting XI’s and substitutions have often confused the Gunners’ faithful.

Mohammed Elneny continues to keep his place in midfield, despite being out on loan last year, Arteta did not rekindle the Xhaka-Ceballos pairing which worked so well last season.

Elneny could be a stop-gap before the potential arrivals of Houssem Aouarand Thomas Partey, but the Egyptian had a poor game tonight and was mostly a passenger.

Dropping Gabriel in favour of a; Holding, Luiz, Tierney three was also confusing for Arsenal fans, after the Brazillian showed signs of promise in the opening two games.