With the Gunners facing Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday, we question why Arsenal have shipped so many goals at Anfield, especially in recent seasons?
Arsenal have never had a particularly fantastic record against Liverpool. When we played them at home in 1893 in League Division Two, they thrashed us 5-0.
In total, we’ve won 78 against the Merseyside team, and lost 85. At Anfield, Liverpool have only lost 24 matches against Arsenal. Ever. This is over all competitions mind – let’s look at just the Premier League.
In recent seasons, the Gunners’ trips to Anfield have been beyond embarrassing.
The last time Arsenal won at Anfield was five years ago on 2 September 2012 when goals from new signings Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla gave Gooners a false sense of hope at the beginning of a new season.
Since then, we’ve lost twice and drawn twice, shipping 13 goals in four matches.
This is almost as many as we’ve conceded against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the same time-frame. (15, if you really want to know)
However, if you do look at our record against other clubs away from home, you begin to get the idea that it’s probably not Liverpool that are just really good at beating Arsenal (who isn’t these days?), although they’ve enjoyed how narrow we play in recent years and how skittish we get at any hint of pressing, it’s probably just us who are terrible away from home against the bigger teams.
Arsenal’s record in general against bigger teams isn’t great as it is but away from home it’s just… horrendous. Like, utterly crap.
I don’t believe just one factor contributes to this and it’s too easy just to write it off as the poor, vulnerable Gunners lacking confidence. While this may be true at times to a degree, it just seems like a bit of a cop-out. Plus, it’s more than a little concerning that well-paid professionals would allow pre-match jitters to effect them so badly and consistently that they routinely humiliate fans who have sometimes traveled hundreds of miles just to watch them play.
Arsenal have become easy to play against as they’re predictable and Arsene Wenger’s tactics, until he decided to switch to 3-4-3 last season against Middlesbrough, didn’t change.
The Gunners would go out every game with the same plan, no matter who they faced or where they were playing.
Spurred on by a home crowd, teams like Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City ran rampant, taking full advantage of our narrow play, lack of proper midfield, inability to defend set-pieces, or sometimes defend at all…
Meanwhile, their superior pressing, ability to out-pass us and prolific goal scorers meant they soared to victory time and time again.
Hopefully, this will have changed come Sunday. Hopefully, the boss will have decided to make sure everyone remains calm and doesn’t leave their post. And hopefully Laurent Koscielny is ready for action.
I wish I held out more hope than I currently do.