(Football news) Both English behemoths were unconvincing winners in their midweek Champions League affairs, as the Gunners edged out Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 before the Reds conquered RB Leipzig by the same scoreline.
Prior to last weekend’s trip to the South Coast, Arsenal fans had to go back to New Year’s Eve 2023 for the last time that their side were bested in a Premier League away fixture, but more alarming indiscipline from Mikel Arteta’s men cost them dearly against Bournemouth.
William Saliba’s first-half sending-off did not mean that the tie was a foregone conclusion—Arsenal had held out for draws against Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester City with 10—but a well-worked Ryan Christie goal from a corner and Justin Kluivert’s penalty ended the Gunners’ wonderful 12-game unbeaten road run in the Premier League.
Not only that, defeat at the Vitality Stadium was Arsenal’s first in half a year, a statistic that a bullish Arteta emphasised in his press conference as his side missed the opportunity to spend Saturday evening top of the rankings; they go into the weekend third and four points adrift of the leading visitors.
A Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka-less side lacked ingenuity once again when Shakhtar came to visit in the Champions League, where only an unfortunate own goal from Dmytro Riznyk got Arteta’s men over the line, but that one-goal triumph does mean that the hosts are on a five-game winning streak at the Emirates.
All in all, nine of Arsenal’s last 10 competitive matches at their North London home have ended in victory, but Gooners may travel in trepidation rather than optimism; Arsenal have won just 45% of their Premier League games without the banned Saliba compared to 74% with him in the team.
A Liverpool side with no such disciplinary concerns to worry about head to the Emirates with an Arne Slot spring in their step, as the Dutchman continues to send Merseyside records tumbling since stepping into the mammoth shoes of Jurgen Klopp.
The Reds passed one of the toughest challenges of their title credentials yet on October 20, when Chelsea rocked up to Anfield and gave Liverpool a terrific run for their money, but Mohamed Salah’s penalty and Curtis Jones’s toe-poke kept the Reds at the summit after Manchester City’s dramatic beating of Wolverhampton Wanderers just hours before.
While Liverpool are one point better off than the holders at the time of writing, they will drop to second by the time Sunday’s game kicks off if City get the better of lowly Southampton on Saturday, and their victory in Leipzig on Wednesday did not come without several scares.
However, Die Roten Bullen’s own wastefulness and offensive naivety also helped the Reds make it eight victories in a row across all competitions, and Slot has astonishingly won each of his first six away games in charge of Liverpool, seeing his team score a paltry two goals in the process.
Success on Sunday would move Liverpool onto 24 points from their first nine games of the new term—only once before have the Reds managed as many points at this stage of a Premier League campaign, taking 25 from nine in their triumphant 2019-20 year.
Liverpool’s powers in this fixture have waned over the past couple of terms, though: Arsenal have prevailed in their last two top-flight games at the Emirates and are unbeaten in four against the Reds in the Premier League, although they did come up short in January’s FA Cup third-round tie on home soil.
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