Arsenal are at home to winless and bottom-of-the-table Liverpool on Sunday and will be looking to get three points to climb up the table into the Champions League places.

With our rivals Chelsea and Manchester City away to Birmingham and Bristol respectively, we can hope that one of them slips up and three points would then take us into the top two.

Liverpool are opponents that should not be underestimated, though.

They have good potential but have not been firing on all cylinders so far this season. They actually recruited excellently last summer, adding one quality player per line: Rebecca Jane in defence, Jade Bailey as a midfielder and Melissa Lawley in attack.

Liverpool also have a lot of former Gunners in their squad, six in total in defenders Niamh Fahey and Leigh-Anne Robe, midfielders Jade Bailey and Christie Murray as well as forwards Melissa Lawley and Kirsty Linnett.

Their main problem is scoring goals in the league as they have scored one in six and that was from the penalty spot by Mel Lawley. The xG so far is 4,4 in six games while ours is 10,5. It has to be said that ours is not great, either, as defences have become tighter and it gets harder to score goals.

Liverpool’s defensive record is not too bad actually. They have the seventh best defence out of twelve with eight goals conceded in six games. They do leave themselves open in that they are a bit high on the pitch and some of their defenders are not the quickest. You would expect Beth Mead, Danielle van de Donk and Jordan Nobbs to take advantage of the space in front of them

Arsenal should line up with Zinsberger; Evans, Williamson, Beattie, McCabe; Walti, Little, Nobbs; Van De Donk, Miedema, Mead. The only possible change would be Maier who was excellent on Thursday against Bristol for Evans at right-back.

In term of injuries, Joe Montemurro advised that Veje, who got injured on international duty again, Mitchell and Kemme were close to being ready.  That only leaves Danielle Carter on the long-term injury list with her ACL injury she sustained during the Emirates Cup in pre-season.

This week’s round sees the top three teams play the bottom three , so Liverpool, who are two points behind Birmingham and Bristol, will surely come to grab a point or even three on the break.

I don’t expect them to come and press high on our defence, as it would expose them, once we break their defensive line.