We still have yet to win in 2022. What a joke. Arsenal doing what they do best and letting me down. No shame in losing to Liverpool, they have more experienced players, proven players, a superior coach and a Portuguese man up top who I wish would come over to the Emirates to play football for a living. But the way we lost, was so frustrating yeah we had a lot of the ball but produced nothing of real value or chances of any note. Just a disappointing display at home for a semifinal cup tie. Also apparently Sadio Mané and Salah didn’t play, like it freaking mattered lol. To be shut out so comprehensively at home with the hype Arsenal have been getting as of late…yikes, but that is the life of an Arsenal fan.
Arteta put out close to our best XI barring Thomas Partey who somehow found his way back from AFCON on time to get on the bench. And then the genius Arteta did the thing again where he tried to squeeze Saka, Martinelli, ESR, and Ødegaard into the same side, which has never worked before and it failed miserably once again. Arsenal fans need to stop hyping and trying to get all 4 of these guys into the side, nothing against these guys, they are all young and promising but the skill sets these 4 provide together is very limited when talking about the best teams in Europe and let alone England. Regardless, Martinelli started the match off strong on the left, giving TAA a hard time. Just relentless and hectic down the left flank and it helped put Liverpool on the back-foot and soon after Laca hit the crossbar on a free kick on the edge of the box. Just as things were looking good for the Gunners, Arsenal happened. Against the run of play, a splendid flick by Firmino put through TAA who hit Jota running at Tomiyasu, spun him round like a bottle top and scuffs a shot into the bottom corner, easy as you like. Just terrible defending by Tomiyasu and no cover at all from the centerbacks. What Jota does so brilliantly on the goal is that once receives the ball, he doesn’t hesitate and decisively goes at Tomiyasu which he didn’t expect which caused him to spin around and fall and opened the lane for him to get on his right and score.
The rest of the game goes a similar way with Arsenal having a lot of the ball and doing what they do best, and that is waste my time. Liverpool were under no threat, we had to ask all the questions and we did absolutely nothing. Laca missed a decent chance but in general, we were nowhere near Klopp’s side and it was disgustingly evident. Thomas Partey arrived from Cameroon that day in London and begged Arteta to let him play and then in typical Arsenal fashion, gets sent off with two quick yellows. The first yellow was bullshit and the second was sloppy but the team was so poor, can’t really get mad at a guy who hopped off the plane from Africa and did what he can to help the squad. But before that, Jota gets on the end of a terrific ball by TAA, and in one fluid motion takes the ball down with his chest and lifts it over Ramsdale, just fucking brilliant. I have to give thanks to Jota for putting me out of my misery. Just an embarrasing performance as we lose 2 nil at home to Klopp again.
The next game is Burnley at the Emirates and will probably be an Arsenal 3-1 because this team like to give me false hope. This game against Liverpool was very similar to basically every Arteta game of any magnitude, just like Everton and United away this season where we just aren’t good enough to perform when the pressure is on. I am still not convinced Arteta is the guy and performances like these come far too often in important moments to convince me we can keep pace in the league for a top 4 finish. Now I am just getting frustrated thinking about this god forsaken team. Lettuce pray for 3 points against Burnley. I also won’t mention how we still haven’t won a game in 2022.
P.S. Shoutout my boy Nico showing out at AFCON. At least we have one Arsenal player providing value on the pitch.