Arsenal Vs Liverpool: How Mohamed Salah proves Unai Emery picked right poison

Unai Emery picked his poison against Liverpool on Saturday. And his Arsenal still fell drastically short. But he was justified in his approach, and Mohamed Salah proves it.

Mohamed Salah sprinted across the pitch to collect Fabinho’s forward pass. He reached it before David Luiz, the Arsenal centre-back pulled out to close the Egyptian down with his team pressing high up the pitch. One touch to lure Luiz in. Another to burst past him. Salah was gone.

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Five touches later, the last of which was a beautifully calm and composed curling shot towards goal, and the ball was nestling into the far bottom corner. It took two passes, nine touches of the ball, and five seconds for Liverpool to work the ball from the corner of the pitch to the corner of the goal.

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The explosive Liverpool counter-attack is what has undermined Arsenal in the past. The ferocious front three, led by Salah, have ripped through hapless resistance. Space abounded and goals flowed. Since Jurgen Klopp took his place at Anfield in October 2016, his brilliant Liverpool side have scored 26 goals in eight games against Arsenal. No team has scored more against another in the same period. Unai Emery was not going to let it happen again.

And so, he devised a unique and somewhat peculiar tactical plan: a deep defensive line shielded by four central midfielders constructed in a narrow diamond, with two centre-forwards pressed high onto Liverpool’s centre-backs, who are left to defend vast spaces at times. This left space in deep wide areas, which full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson made the most of, but it also stemmed the incessant attacking tide from Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.

And in the first half, this divisive plan worked. Liverpool scored the only goal of the half from a set-piece, and the only other excellent chance they created came from Dani Ceballos passing the ball straight to Mane in the penalty area. Salah had six shots on Saturday. Only one came in the first half.

Emery believed that allowing Alexander-Arnold and Robertson to have the ball was the least likely path for Liverpool to create chances. The pair combined for 24 crosses in the first half. Luiz and Sokratis handled them excellently, positioning themselves well in the penalty area to clear the danger. Liverpool looked lost for ideas. After the break, however, when Klopp’s side looked a lot more dangerous, with nearly two-thirds of their open-play shots coming after the break, they attempted only three.

Salah’s second goal, Liverpool’s third of the game, was the perfect illustration of what Emery was trying to — and, it should be said, he largely succeeded in his attempts — stop. The space in behind. The exposed positions of the centre-halves. The blistering speed of Liverpool’s attack which can exploit an unstructured Arsenal in transition. This is what Emery prevented in the first half. It was only once his team had to chase the game that these opportunities opened up for the Liverpool attack.

Facing a team as brilliantly complete and cohesive as Liverpool is like a game of whack-a-mole. You hit one hole and another pops up elsewhere; you prevent one method of attack, and they simply attack you in another manner. Emery picked his poison, and Salah proved he picked the right one.