Premier League 24/25
Qwiss fair enough. I thought Saka had more than that 
Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert Saka has plenty of assists.
Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert yeah we spread the goals pretty well compared to Liverpool. They have just 3 more than us overall but rely really heavily on Salah. Its why I think they are fucked without him.
Unfortunately we now get to find out how fucked we are without Saka. Who knows maybe not relying on him will cause us to spread it around more and be less predicable and right side focussed.
We don't play like Liverpool, because we've opted to emulate a team which has superior tactics. Tactics which allowed us to leapfrog Liverpool.
I think saying we emulate City is a bit of shallow analysis really. You may as well be calling Arteta "lego Pep" or whatever other derogatory things people say about him being Peps assistant. Arteta has plenty of his own ideas and I don't think we could even emulate City if he wanted to without their resources and rule breaking.
awooga83 Scored more consistently
The difference between allowed 0 / scored 0 is +2.
Liverpool were a good distance behind us on points last season don't forget. Did onlookers think they were more efficient than us at securing three points in this league then? For a lot of 2024 we'd won pretty much every away match we'd played.
Some of us are getting carried away. Liverpool have Salah firing and they're having a fortunate run this season. They needed an 83rd minute penalty to see off Southampton, they're not that good.
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What we've emulated is pinning teams back and controlling the game in the opponents half. We've had the second highest number of touches in the attacking third in the league after City over the last few years. That is at odds with playing with more verticality and pace, but is also a superior tactic then whatever Liverpool do.
We finished ahead of them in the last two season and very well would have done the same this season had we not suffered so many injuries and refereeing decisions. It happens.
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daredevil and if we leapfrog Liverpool you won't hear me complaining about not being enough like Liverpool.
daredevil We finished ahead of them in the last two season and very well would have done the same this season had we not suffered so many injuries and refereeing decisions. It happens.
You can't have it that we are behind them because of injuries but claim we were ahead of them based on tactics when they were hurt just as badly with injuries those years.
Anyway why are people talking about Liverpool over a multi year period anyway? Slot has just joined this year, their tactics the previous couple of seasons don't really matter.
Liverpool under Slott doesn't play all too different from us.
Both teams:
- invert their full backs. Average positions that the full backs play for both teams are roughly the same (unlike Citeh, who have a maniacally high line which no one seems to point out). Robertson is their go-to inverted full back.
- have CB good on the ball.
- Use CMs to progress play from the middle third to the opposition by either carrying a short distance or finding line-breaking passes.
- prioritise retaining posession.
- Play with fairly high lines.
- Love to play crosses to the far post (though we've done this less nowadays which is part of our problem).
Tactically maybe the only real difference is that they have a tendency to pack the midfield, doing a 2-3-2-3 Instead of our 3-2-2-3 in the buildup though both end up with a 2-3-5 in attack. We end up having the same weaknesses too.
The biggest difference right now for us is being clinical in attack and our attacking intensity. They take waaaay more shots from open play, we tend to fiddle faddle. OTOH we are definitely better at set pieces.
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It's the exact same side playing how they've always played. Slot hasn't made any drastic changes aside from fine tuning them.
I rate Liverpool, but they aren't the team I'm envious of. Recency aside.
I feel like we are living in separate realities.
QuincyAbeyie repeat after me “Arsenal outscored and outpointed Liverpool the last two seasons”.
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Claudius sounds like we're living in the same reality, but in different times.
Tell me, around this time in 22/23, were you using the two past seasons and ignored the current season like you're doing now, or were you saying we were better than the invincibles?
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awooga83 totally fair and valid to highlight this. I think we're all agreed Arsenal do need a little bit more to truly get us up a level, I just find it difficult when people are highlighting Liverpool's performance yesterday and this is the level of defending they were facing.
https://bsky.app/profile/rockthecasbah77.bsky.social/post/3ldxzvaxci222
For however bad people think we've been in attacking sense this season, we've lost three Premier League games all year. Things may not be brilliant, as Qwiss said yesterday, but they're far from bad.
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There's of course been variance in style and configurations, and that happens even under the same manager season over season, but the core tenets of their playing style is still intact. Their style is still defined by the qualities and attributes of Salah, Diaz, TAA and co.
Claudius I know the initial framing was how Arsenal have compared to Liverpool over the last decade and I agree with you that we’ve been better than them the past two seasons but worse than them the last few months.
However the point is kind of irrelevant. In the last two seasons, we didn’t outscore City - the eventual winners - and this season we’re so far not scoring as much as the league leaders. That’s the main cause for concern