Last season’s top two (and most people’s picks to be first and second this season too) face off at Anfield on Sunday, with the meeting of Liverpool and Arsenal the first box office spectacular of the new Premier League season. It may not be a match that decides the title race but in terms of setting the tone for the months ahead, this game could take on an outsized importance.
Mikel Arteta goes into it with an impressive record to defend. His Arsenal side have not lost a Premier League match against Liverpool since March 2022, but it has been quite a while since the Spaniard tasted top-flight victory at Anfield, going all the way back to a 2-0 win in September 2012 when Arteta was a starter for Arsene Wenger’s side.
Both sides will be chasing a third win from their first three games, with Arne Slot acutely aware of the need to improve a defense that has conceded six goals across their league and Community Shield games so far. Equally, the Liverpool attack is looking in menacing form and will be sure to ask plenty of questions of Arsenal. Here are some of the key issues both coaches will be grappling with going into the game:
1. Who locks down Salah?
It may be impossible for any team to slow Mohamed Salah at full tilt, but if anyone has given it a good go in recent years, it is Arsenal. The Egyptian has still cooked up some special moments against his title rivals but when Mikel Arteta’s defense has been good against Salah, they have forced him to live off scraps.
Their approach is relatively straightforward. Salah is going to drive infield from the right flank on his stronger right foot, so Arsenal will respond, when they can, by sticking a defender at left back who can defend on his right foot. Ideally, he can also cover overlapping attacks or Salah driving down the byline, a true two-footed defender. Takehiro Tomiyasu was the role’s progenitor; if his fitness could be relied on, he would probably still be in the Arsenal squad specifically for games like this one. Jurrien Timber, Arsenal’s best defensive fullback, did an excellent job for 76 minutes at the Emirates last season. Five minutes later, Salah scored an equalizer that in retrospect might have throttled Arsenal’s title momentum.
With a full slate of players to choose from, Mikel Arteta might well have been tempted to shunt Timber across to left back again. Then again, this is Arsenal we’re talking about. It has been well over a year without a full slate. No Ben White — north London’s stout knight, the sort of player who’d lose a leg and convince his bosses he could play through a flesh wound — means there is only one right back to choose from. That means one of Riccardo Calafiori or Myles Lewis-Skelly will have the task of marshalling Salah.
Lewis-Skelly did so relatively effectively at the back end of last season but like several springtime opponents, he was running into a satiated Salah, one with no more worlds left to conquer in 2024-25. Still, Lewis-Skelly’s CV of defensive excellence is remarkable for a player of just 18 years of age; handing a teenager the task of locking down the best attacker in England might just be the most conservative option for Arteta.
It is not that Calafiori cannot be trusted to do his defensive work, more that in an Arsenal shirt, he has license to bomb across the field, an agent of such chaos that him side-footing the ball into the Etihad net from 30-odd yards makes total sense. Can he curb his enthusiasm for flying forward? Should he?
Viewing information and odds
- Date: Sunday, Aug. 31| Time: 11:30 a.m. ET
- Location: Anfield — Liverpool, United Kingdom
- TV: NBC
- Odds: Liverpool +125; Draw +240; Arsenal +210
2. Can Wirtz do a job on Zubimendi?
It is rare enough to hear managers speak about how they might fit an opposition player into their team, all the rarer when that player is one who turned them down in high-profile fashion just over a year ago. And yet there is no point in Arne Slot pretending like he didn’t have a vision for Martin Zubimendi. The entire footballing world knew that Liverpool were working to make him the centerpiece of their new manager’s first season, only for Zubimendi to get cold feet as Arsenal intimated their interest for a move 12 months later.
“What we liked about him was how good he is on the ball, and how much game insight he has,” Slot said of Zubimendi. “We thought, and it was true, that we would have the ball a lot in every single game, and then to have someone in front of your defence that is very comfortable on the ball would have been a good fit for us. Especially if he’s also defensively strong enough for the league, which he’s showing now and which we also expected.”
As Slot noted, Liverpool found much of what they needed in Ryan Gravenberch but he will be facing a special talent in Zubimendi, the sort of controlling midfield presence who could take the air out of the game. Pair him with Declan Rice in a true double pivot, something that Arteta has experimented with this season, and Arsenal could win the midfield battle against Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister, who is only just returning to fitness.
Liverpool’s deeper midfielders will need help and it may come down to Florian Wirtz to offer that. The former Bayer Leverkusen man has not yet dominated a Premier League game in possession but he seems to have swiftly adapted to Slot’s requirements for him without the ball. A willing presser, Wirtz is averaging a recovery in the attacking third every 50 or so minutes (of course, caveated with a tiny sample size of minutes). He will need to do more of that off-ball work. Arsenal will be eager to take the air out of Anfield on what is sure to be a raucous occasion. Several minutes of steady, controlled possession would do the trick but a regain or two in a dangerous place by Wirtz might get the Kop bouncing.
3. Is this where Madueke can shine?
Few £50 million signings have been greeted with the sheer aggravation that Arsenal supporters felt when Noni Madueke arrived from Chelsea in the summer. Online petitions drew signatures in their thousands and graffiti was scrawled outside the Emirates calling for Arteta’s sacking. Every summer seems to serve up a sign that transfer culture is melting the brains of football fans. This was that writ large, not least because Arsenal had just acquired a player who could very feasibly address multiple issues across their squad. Madueke has already proven that he can deepen the options on the left wing, a more cross-first, left-footed option who contrasts well with Gabriel Martinelli. Now he could get a game on his favoured right flank.
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Last season, Arsenal had to scrabble Bukayo Saka back for Liverpool’s visit to the Emirates, a match he lit up with an early goal but in which he faded as he battled with a muscle issue. Within two months, he would suffer a major hamstring injury. There is no prospect of Saka returning this weekend from the issue that forced him to limp out of the win over Leeds but Arsenal will hope this is the match where Madueke can give them a bit of breathing room.
The 23-year-old impressed against Trent Alexander-Arnold when deployed on the Chelsea left last season, now he should be fancying his chances against Milos Kerkez, who, even as the most reserved of Liverpool’s two new fullbacks, is not afraid of bombing on. Madueke’s direct running and pace seem ideally suited to probe the spaces behind the champions’ backline, spaces in which Bournemouth and Newcastle have relished. This could be a prime opportunity for the new man to win over the skeptics in the Arsenal fanbase.
