Arsenal: 3 reasons Kieran Tierney should start vs Liverpool

3. Kieran Tierney Has Experience & Leadership Over Nuno Tavares

Experience and confidence are everything in football. For all the games Nuno has played, and for all the confidence he is exuding, Tierney has well more than double that. He’s been around the block.

Anfield is no easy ground. When the crowd are on top of you it’s a hostile atmosphere to be involved in, one where you need your experienced heads, those who will bark orders and face the adversity head on.

Boasting such a young team has its positives and negatives. On the one hand, the energy and endeavour is there, with sprinklings of the unconventional, while likewise the occasion can get under the skin and focus can be lost.

Arsenal will sorely need leaders out there on Saturday and if the kitchen sink is being thrown at the Gunners then Tierney is the man you want shouting at Smith Rowe to press out wide, or the man to tell Sambi to track his runner. Factor in there being no Granit Xhaka and the 24-year-old is voice this lineup craves to an ever greater degree.

Mentally, working on the basis that Arsenal do get pummeled for 90 minutes, and possibly end up losing, for a young lad playing in his first Premier League match of this magnitude, who knows what effect that could have on Nuno. Should he make a few costly mistakes – which he may well not do, as there is no suggesting he definitely will – then someone with Tierney’s experience is better placed to deal with it.

But in a similar mould to last season when Pablo Mari was (actually) playing well and Gabriel was showing glimpses of his ability, it was a very welcome headache to have where both options were a more than adequate pain killer.

It should be celebrated that Arsenal have to left-backs they can trust. Yet, on this occasion, the circumstances call for Tierney.