3 key lessons from Liverpool ahead of West Ham trip

For 40 minutes at Anfield, Arsenal were superb. They had confidence, swagger and ruthlessly manoeuvred Liverpool to score two goals in the first half hour.

However, after going on to draw the game, Mikel Arteta’s post-mortem will be key to unpicking what went wrong to ensure Arsenal have a quick bounce back to winning ways.

The easy analysis of the momentum swing is to point to Granit Xhaka’s scuffle with Trent Alexander-Arnold, as a point where the crowd woke up. However, after looking back with a clear head, that moment has been vastly overstated, and Liverpool had multiple chances right before it happened, and scored from the move immediately following.

3 key lessons from Liverpool ahead of West Ham trip

So what can Arsenal put right?

1. The basics

Arsenal came to Anfield with a swagger, but at 0-2, they became overconfident. They were playing one-touch football in their own box at times and making it look easy, but it was inviting the Liverpool press, which is fine with William Saliba at the back, but with Rob Holding, it’s a different story.

That overconfidence almost caught up with Arsenal when Holding opted to play a reverse pass in his own half to Oleksandr Zinchenko, which was intercepted and led to a big chance that Mo Salah missed.

That should have been a wake-up call for Arsenal. Keep it simple, make your passes and keep the opposition out of the game until halftime.

The same continued through the second half, with the usual cohesion being completely off between Ben White, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Thomas Partey, meaning Arsenal struggled to get out of their own half when under pressure, despite playing very well from the 56th to 81st minute when Liverpool didn’t have a shot on goal.

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2. The second ball

If you can’t win the first, win the second. At times Arsenal were too soft going into their duels as Arteta stated after the game. However, if you win the second ball, it’s manageable.

Arsenal failed to do that on numerous occasions, and for Liverool’s first goal, they were cut open as Liverpool moved it quickly and got players to loose balls first.

The same occurred with the Liverpool penalty. Gabriel and Virgil van Dijk competed for the header, which then broke in the box, and Diogo Jota won a soft penalty by getting to the second ball first.

Again, when Darwin Nunez went through for a one-on-one, it was Jakub Kiwior who failed to win the second ball from a Van Dijk header. That should have been a warning for Arsenal, but it wasn’t.

After Gabriel failed to kill the game with an easy chance, Liverpool marched forward. Andy Robertson’s cross was headed out by Holding, but again, Arsenal failed to get to the ball quick enough, and Salah picked it up, leading to Roberto Firmino’s winner.

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3. The full-backs

Arsenal’s full-backs have been their secret weapon this season. Zinchenko averages the most touches per game in the team, and Ben White has become a complete full-back with a superb understanding with Saka and Saliba.

At Anfield, they were off. White got an early warning when he let Robertson in behind, and then Liverpool’s first goal came about because he had vacated his zone. That happened on several occasions throughout the game, especially after he was booked on 23 minutes. He never looked comfortable from that moment on. Against Man Utd, he was booked on 19 minutes, and again looked lost, but was hooked at half-time for Takehiro Tomiyasu.

On the left, Zinchenko was playing against Liverpool’s best player but was carried heavily by Gabriel who was immense. Defensively, he wasn’t as bad as some have suggested, but on the ball, he was absent by his standards. But, he is a strong-willed character and will bounce back stronger.

The good thing for Arsenal is they came away from the game with a point, their first at Anfield since 2016, and if they get the small things right, they will do serious damage at West Ham.