Arsenal: 4 positives from the 4-0 Liverpool hammering

2. Arsenal Had Defended Well for 40 Minutes

The first goal was gut wrenching. Not because there was a belief that it wouldn’t eventually arrive, but because Arsenal had up until that point defended stoutly.

Led by Gabriel and Benjamin White, they had stood firm against most of anything Liverpool threw at them.

Aaron Ramsdale had to be ready to make saves. Every single goalkeeper has to at Anfield. For an Arsenal side in their current position, if they were to have any chance of securing a positive result then they knew Ramsdale would have to have a good game.

Prior to the opener though, every ball pumped into the box was batted away by the head of White, and every ground duel was mopped up by Gabriel who had done brilliantly shifting out to the left to aid Nuno Tavares against Mohamed Salah.

Even with a ferocious frontline charging at him, there was trust in Gabriel to handle whatever was thrown at him. For 40 minutes of this game Arsenal were compact, determined and combative in defence.

Takehiro Tomiyasu was getting chopped up by Sadio Mane throughout the half, and while he was lacking some quality in the final third, he was doing his job, too.

Did everything fall apart after the break and the second goal? Yes. Heads dropped, structure vanished and the calmness shown from the defence in that first half was replaced with rashness. That is concerning. It wasn’t pretty, and most of the things the backline did well prior to the half-time whistle was replaced with the opposite.

But, we’re looking at positives, and for a good while there was some brave defending on show both in and out of possession.

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