The feeling after last night is very similiar to the feeling after the City game at home; despite the fact that we lost, there are still more positives than negatives to reflect upon. The contrast between our away and home games against them is stark. We went toe to toe with two of the best sides in the world, and we did it by playing our own way and taking the game to them. Man Utd and Spurs wouldn't be able to do that, to get something from those games they'd need to adapt their game completely to their opponent (which Spurs at least are admittedly pretty good at).

It feels like that final 10% of quality is missing, which allowed Liverpool and City to punish us for our mistakes, while we couldn't do the same to them. The foundation and structure is there, and we're building our confidence too. Again comparing us to Spurs and Man Utd, they have more of that extra quality in players like Ronaldo, Kane, Son and Fernandes, players who will win you the game if given the opportunity. However they don't have the solid foundation, which is why they drop unexpected points against poorer opposition more often.

I would much rather be in our position. That final push of quality will be gained by signing a few quality players, and from the quality players we already have getting older and more experienced. Building a solid foundation is a lot more difficult and takes more time and skill. We're inching our way closer to the top, and just need to keep the team together, and keep improving. No huge rebuild is needed, which isn't the case for our rivals.

We need to get Arteta tied down to a new contract now. For me he deserves the contract whether we finish top 4 or not.

Also worth noting Klopp and Pep have contracts that expire in 2024. Both have hinted that they may not renew. If that turns out to be the case we need to be targeting the league title the year after. Those two managers embody everything about their teams and without them I think they will not hit the heights they have, certainly in the more difficult moments of the season

And that style of game plan relies on a lot of luck. Allowing the opposition to have all the ball and hoping that they squander their chances that come and that they switch off to allow you to counter can of course work but for sustainable long term progression and league titles you have to force your game and be the aggressor

Exactly that. It's not a game plan you rely on willingly, it's one you choose when you don't have the quality to get results any other way. Anyone being honest in their assassment would prefer a team that can impose their own game on the opponents.

Arsenal over the last decade or more can probably be accused of not being pragmatic enough in the big games, but in these last two home games against City and Liverpool it wasn't a lack of pragmatism that were our downfall. Liverpool didn't tear us apart last night, they just took advantage of the little we gave them. It's a lesson to learn, but not a bad one in the grand scheme of things.

Not sure if it has been mentioned but that was Tierney’s best game for us for a while. He was superb last night

Overall I thought it was a good effort last night but I was slightly disappointed in a few players.

I thought Ødegaard was unable to influence the game, which was not entirely his fault. We needed him to dictate the game but we just were not quite at a level which could allow him to do that and Liverpool's sharper pressing meant he was given very little time or space on the ball.

I thought White and Gabriel were slow to react defensively at times and were also too slow playing the ball out from the back. Gabriel seems to have developed that odd silly mistake in him too. I do wonder if the Gabi/White partnership will be the one to take us where we want to be despite our decent defensive record. If we want to start playing and beating the big boys in the PL and europe we need to make better decisions defensively because one or two mistakes is all it takes and it's game over, as we saw last night.

Ramsdale made a howler, which sadly was a gamechanger, but he's made so many brilliant saves this season its hard to be too critical.

Saka just couldn't get in the game which I think was a combination of Robertson and good doubling up on him. He's been brilliant all season so again no real criticism here.

Martinelli was a livewire but understandably looked knackered after 60 mins.

Partey was very good and I can't help but feel that a top midfielder alongside him could be the making of us.

Obviously, despite Lacazette's best efforts we desperately need a topclass CF.

This from Jonathan Liew in this morning’s Grauniad.

"The match in summary: Arsenal were the better side for 50 minutes and did nothing with it. Liverpool were the better side for the next 15 minutes and killed the game. As for the rest, who cares?"

And we played a Liverpool (once again) at their best. If Liverpool play at their best they will beat us, and every other team in the league bar City. If we’d played the Liverpool that turned up in either game v West Ham, their game v Brighton, or away to Leicester or another handful of games we’d have won last night.

Arteta is right to highlight the unfairness of playing late on Wednesday and then the early kick off on the Saturday. Klopp and Solksjaer have called it out in the past. It is a crazy schedule. And before people say we’ve had it easy with 1 game a week and when we play in Europe again we’ll have this schedule more often - it’s not about playing 2 games a week it’s about having to play the early game on a Saturday. If you play on a Wednesday there is no way your next game should be Saturday morning.

Overall I thought it was a good performance. Had we a fox in the box it might well have been different. We are closing the gap for sure. I did think heads did drop at the 2nd goal.

Did anyone say project? Get to work, agent Ødegaard

did he not mention we play on Monday evening as well?

No we don’t. Unless you’re looking at the April fixture.

Sorry Rich, but that wasn't Liverpool at their best. Mo Salah is probably the best player in the world. He was on the bench. Jota and Diaz didn't have good games. Robertson said after the game that they knew at half time that they needed to play better, which they did in the second half.

Of course they weren't at their very best in this specific game (part of that is probably us making it very difficult for them) but overall they're absolutely flying at the moment with 14 wins and a loss in their last 15 games. Not like when we faced them in the second leg of the EFL Cup and they had two draws and a loss in their last five.

These comments seem to do us a disservice. At the end of the day it took them a goalkeeping mistake to get them playing. Until then they were not much kop and they should have been one down.

At anfield in the first half they didn’t do much again until Rob Holding forgot to mark someone at a set piece.

They just have way more firepower than us in the final third. That to me seems the difference

Arsenal restricted Liverpool to their lowest xG of the season last night, it was also only the second time Liverpool had fewer than 10 shots in a game this season.

And absolutely ruthless and clinical with their finishing and almost perfect in their defending. Any criticism of Liverpool’s performance is down to how we played them not because they were poor.

I'm not doing Arsenal a disservice and I'm not trying to either. The effort levels from the players was excellent. I'm simply disagreeing that Liverpool were at their best last night. As I said, they didn't even start their best player. I thought we did very well in the first half but our shortcomings at centre forward was very obvious.

If only ...

Would be such a perfect fit.

And I never said they were poor, but you said they were at their best. Both Souness and Carragher praised Arsenal at half time but also said Liverpool would need to up their performance and Robertson said the same after the game.

I just disagree with the notion that Liverpool were below par then blew us away when they finally felt up to it like it was their decision.

If Ramsdale had a stronger hand and saka actually cleared his lines would we be saying Liverpool stepped up.

I’ve seen Liverpool beat teams 6-0 with unrelenting fast attacking football, but I don’t see those games as a measure of ‘their best’. I’ve watched a lot of Liverpool over the last 3 or so years because I actually really appreciate the way they play. For them to shut us out barring one mistake and one late Martinelli curler and ruthlessly stick away the two big chances they did create showed how good they were particularly when most Arsenal fans would have said we played pretty well.
The point I was trying to make about getting Liverpool at their best was in relation to other games I’ve seen them certainly not at their best and they still won those games. I think they had to be at or close to their best to beat us- which hasn’t always been the case. Also that’s different to us losing to Man City at home because I don’t think City played well and were helped by a fair bit of luck that day.

Some of the weirdest scenes I've ever seen in Everton - Newcastle just now. Someone from the crowd just ran down and tied himself to a goalpost, looked like some sort of protest. They managed to cut him loose, but he refused to leave and laid down on the pitch, leading to someone else running down from the crowd to give him a beating. Everton are something else this season.

Allan red card tonight, upgraded by the ref having been referred to the pitch side monitor, this is the sort of tackle that I complain someone like Xhaka gets a red for but no one else does. I think you can make an argument for a red because he’s nowhere near the ball, it’s a lunge etc but I think it is rare that these sorts of tackles get a straight red.

https://twitter.com/tikitakaconnor/stat ... 14272?s=21

Find myself agreeing more and more with a lot of what Carragher says nowadays- more so than Neville.

That West Ham win last night isn’t helpful. If they win the Europa League then they take one of the Champions League places.

I dont think it does. There would be 5 in the CL but 4th place in the league would have to go in the qualifying round.

The bigger threat was the potential for Man U to win the CL and West Ham win EL and both finish outside top 4. Then 4th place would not get CL.

You’re right Rich. I posted a report the other day that a maximum of five clubs are allowed in the Champions League from any one country.

So Arsenal would not get in it by finishing fourth behind Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea if both West Ham won the Europa League and Manchester United win the Champions League as winning the European trophies comes above finishing fourth in the Premier League as a criterion for Champions League qualification.

Gladly Manchester United were knocked out a couple of days ago, meaning they can’t win the Champions League. Hence even if West Ham win the Europa League, fourth place will still get us in it.

I suppose the only permutation now would be Chelsea finishing 5th, Arsenal 4th and West Ham 6th but both Chelsea and West Ham winning in europe, then we’d be out of CL

Ah that sounds better. Thanks for that.

I can remember us playing qualifying games and we always seemed to draw tough opposition albeit successfully.

We are playing again tomorrow away. That’s just mental.

If we come away from that with 3 points I’d be surprised. That’s 3 massive games in 6 days.

I hope Mikel freshens it up but I think he’s concerned with disrupting the balance of the side.

That would take Manchester United or Tottenham (only one of them, not both) putting such a run together that they finish third, above not only Arsenal in fourth but above Chelsea in fifth. It probably isn’t impossible but the balance of probabilities make it look extremely unrealistic.

I don't blame Ramsdale for that goal although it always looks bad when it goes through the hand and is at the near post. It was a very well struck shot indeed. Ditto Saka. We're a goal down and he needs to try to make things happen. It's just unfortunate that Liverpool took advantage so ruthlessless.

I'm torn between 'we were unlucky' and 'Liverpool were more ruthless'.

What is encouraging is that the gap in quality between us and the top three looks much smaller now.

Third time lucky with Chelsea?

Conte just a bit upset over Mikel's fixture congestion complaints.

Good.

If we wanted a response on fairness in football it probably shouldn’t come from a manager who was given a 10 month ban as part of the biggest match fixing scandal to hit Italy for decades

I’d quite forgotten that.

The Conte match fixing I'd even forgotten about. Think that was that one episode in that Bad Sport series on Netflix. The episode called Soccergate. Seems Conte forgot about it as well. In all due fairness...

Only a few days rest, must win game, and Villa are a tough nut to crack ( at ltg....lol), but if we play anywhere close to what we did in the Liverpool game, we should win. A draw is probably a fair result on paper if you look at everything I would guess. But, we must do it.

I'm hoping West Ham takes points if not a win but a win will be tough. I like them this season. Proud of how consistently tough they are to play. I'd hate to lose out to 4th but West Ham is the only one of the three (sperz, Man Utd), I wouldn't begrudge.

Let's do it!