Hard lines

After 5 wins on the bounce, we came up against the Champions and most people’s favourites for the title this year, with optimism on the back of recently much improved performances.

For some reason, we started the name looking very nervy and Arsenal were winning the midfield battle, when a poor pass out from Alisson cost us possession and a few passes later we were 1-0 down.

The goal seemed to wake us up however and we absolutely battered them for the rest of the half, though we were struggling to create big chances. Kerkez was guilty of some poor crossing and some wayward finishing from our forwards, as demonstrated by our lack of a shot on target in the game but that doesn’t tell the full story.

Our biggest chance fell to Mac Allister, Kerkez found his crossing boots and put a perfect ball in for Macca to run onto but he blazed his header over the bar. Despite that he was still my McMOTM, as I thought he was excellent throughout.

Wirtz was unlucky to see his excellent free kick come off the bar as well and I thought he was excellent first half but faded second, as did Isak.

Rio came on and was lively and it was good to see the return of Szoboszlai and Munoz, although questions remain about the balance of our midfield when both Dom and Wirtz are playing but that’s a problem for the gaffer to sort out.

So a defeat then which is obviously never what you want but a throughly enjoyable game to watch and it’s so refreshing to feel like we’re actually watching Liverpool again. Not to mention Arsenal are two years ahead of us in terms of squad development and squad depth. A lot of reasons to be optimistic though. Walk on!