This is is true, but the tactical issue that Liverpool presented us in the second half need to be thoroughly investigated if you’re Arteta.
You have to have adjustments ready for when teams decide to go direct. The same thing occured last season against Man City (@Emirates). Arsenal pressed them and generated many opportunities, but when they decided to play longer, Arsenal lost their superiority and then the game.
We wanted to score and we needed to score (at home, in a scoring slump).
We need to push up to achieve that.
Luke I said, this is a knock out game, especially we haveost two, we have more to prove than Pool.
All they need is a tie and go home for next game.
We had to attack.
If this was a league game, sure we would not giving them that much space.
Credit for them still, their plan worked.
We are fine until someone brings on good kickers, then it’s over.
Klopp did try to explain why Liverpool grew into the game in the second half.
He said it was tough to stop Arsenal in the first half(he’s not the first one) but Arsenal not scoring, and he also added the element of being at home, as time went made us rush.
It’s game state really. You can’t keep the tempo we had in the first half. Not even City can do that. Not putting a team like them to the sword can backfire(City got a taste of that at the Etihad). Especially as a team lacking confidence it’s a recipe for disaster.
We kept wasting our chances, our confidence kept dropping, the murmuring from the crowd starts, Liverpool fans get louder, slowly we start losing duels and we make mistakes, Liverpool see us slowly losing the grip of the game, they are attacking more and then an own goal from a set piece absolute kills whatever confidence we had.
I don’t think we created another big chance after they scored. Our passing certainly became very sloppy.
Saka fluffed that chance before the own goal?
Yes very 2011 Wenger-esque cup exit. Except back then we hadnt invested in the team in about 5 years and had strikers we picked up on a free transfer. As opposed to 30m on a GK and 65m on an attacking mid, but yeah other than that exactly the same!! Lolol
It is disappointing but no need to make it a big deal.
Missing a scoring striker is not something new to this game, to this season. We def need a prolific scorer.
It is unfortunate that our players missing their scoring boots, some have a dip in form.
Still, we were dominating more than half of the game against Pool, unlike the game against Fulham and WH.
We created a lot of chances but very unfortunate that we could not score.
Last game against Pool, this game against them, we were on par with them everything except the needed goal.
Yes, we are missing something, a scorer, or a bit more, but we are not a level below them.
We just need some fine tune on the team, need our players to get in form again.
I believe the qualities of our players and our manager.
My mate posted on Facebook that he’d just watched Arsenal knock themselves out of the FA Cup, which is true.
Liverpool didn’t win the game, we threw it away, after a succession of wasted chances and an own goa so Klopp can’t take much credit because even the free kick before the first goal shouldn’t have been given.
We’re clearly lacking a goal scorer and it’s obvious that Arteta doesn’t trust Nketiah upfront when Jesus is injured, so we’re effectively playing without a striker which, by any definition, isn’t ideal.
It doesn’t look likely we’ll get a replacement in this window so our attacking players had better get some shooting practice in before our next game.
Nelson’s refusal to try and chip Allison, Havertz refusal to do his job as a 9 and take any of his opportunities with conviction and Saka continuing his poor current form while he probably should be rested/dropped cost us this game. No team can give Liverpool that many lifelines. Should have been 1-0 up at the very least by half time.
We either create a lot of chances and be extremely wasteful in front of goal or we just create fuck all and get outplayed. The system was the primary driver to these players successes last season. We were never going to get by with their individual talents because they’re simply not on that level where we can.
Many of the squad decisions that have proven to be quite shocking tbh especially given how few of these options are trusted. That squad management thread deserves some lengthy write ups.
Tbh aside from Fulham and the Chelsea 1st half I can’t think of too many games we’ve been outplayed as such.
Agree with several other points you make regarding yesterdays game and some squad building in the summer.
Yeah, I’m willing to accept Chelsea and Fulham being two games that were genuinely bad and were outplayed and outworked but I can’t recall another game.
Even the Lens loss away we created some big chances and should have walked away with something in the end.
It’s really annoying because I think we have been progressively playing better and better as the season has been going.
Initially in the season used to give little to no chances to the opponent and create a few key chances that usually gave us a good chance at winning games, which often enough we took.
Now we create more than just a few chances(and some pretty big ones too) while also giving the opponent little to no chances and yet we don’t take our chances and our opponents are punishing with half a chance they get.
We’re really close to things clicking big time and yet we have been punished in the two boxes.
That’s why I’m not at headloss state yet.
We’re doing a lot of things right.
Comparing us to this stage last season post WC. We started giving away one too many chances and we were really efficient with the openings we got. Odegaard and Saka really picked up form then and showed no mercy with a view on goal.
Again, season’s not done.
Big chance in early February to get that gap in the PL back to 2 points and then we’re right back in it. And also, we shouldn’t forget about the CL, which is where our best performances habe come from this season. City and Madrid aside, I don’t think there’s a team in there that we should be scared of.
I thought we started off great and controlled the pace of the game, espcially in the first half. Some of the football, particularly in midfield, was sharp and Liverpool couldn’t match us there.
I’ve been wanting Havertz to play up front and despite his link up play being good, he failed to do anything in the box with conviction. If he could strike a ball we’d be laughing.
I thought Saka was awful and should have been taken off instead of Nelson, who was having a great game to be fair to him. Martinelli came on and did 5 dribbles finding 0 Arsenal players after each one which was depressing to watch.
Gabriel won a ton of headers with Rice and Jorginho having decent games too. Shout out to Ramsdale who could have had an assist in the first minute and pulled off a great save.
Our failure to put the ball in the net at the moment is costing us dearly. It’s crazy how numbers across the frontline were so good last season but now we’ve regressed.
Been to 5 games this season and we’ve only won one of them 
https://twitter.com/thehandofrod/status/1744113216710463718?s=46&t=LlMNFvsPPy2ozwuX8FhQrA
What a comparison 
West Ham in the cup as well.
In fairness this time he put in a couple of good balls and the others were sleeping. He absolutely roasted Trent so much that Klopp had to move him to midfield.
Just a shame because I think the next time Gabi ran at Trent we made it count.
Did I miss those good balls? He got in some great positions in the box but as far as I remember he wasted them all.
Cba to go rewatch and find them tbh with you (leave that to flexo) was just my feeling from 20 yards away at the time.
Definitely remember one fizzing across the box and maybe a little bit heavy but expected more from Saka and co trying to get onto it. I think there was also a pullback which should’ve been buried? Konate made a couple of good blocks as well iirc.
Def didn’t see it as a martinelli disaster class. The worst thing he did was stop running at the defender once that Bradley kid came on.
Well, it was definitely not a disasterclass. Saka and Havertz certainly took that honour yesterday.
