The Liverpool trend that offers Arsenal newfound hope of upsetting champions

In Arsenal’s analysis for this Sunday in Anfield, they have already noticed something different about Liverpool beyond new players. Champions are now trying much more unexpected. It is as if the attackers had received a greater creative license to engage in part of their individual quality. Hence the arrow beauty of Rio Ngumoha’s noisy winning goal against Newcastle United.

This can make this Liverpool team much more unpredictable, especially since stars like Mohamed Salah try things that others could not imagine. An appropriate game for Ebelechi Eze to make his debut, perhaps.

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The discrepancy is that it also makes Liverpool much more open, to go with the loading system before Arne Slot. It is not only that Ryan Gravenberch pinned the midfielder together against Newcastle. The more freedom you give, the less the training will be prohibited. So, if someone like Florian Wirtz loses the ball trying something more risky, there is instantly much more space in behind.

Slot was willing to take such risks because Liverpool has quality to punish you from nowhere. It has been justified by two results so far, despite questions about performance. It is almost as if the manager of Liverpool very literally tries to push the limits of last season; move the lines of his training; To try new things to go to new levels.

Against this, Mikel Arteta sought to harden the limits of his team; To fill the remaining gaps. He questioned last season and knows that the upper level of arsenal is quite good, and “probably better than that of Liverpool”, according to some initiates. The problem was the depth and the alternatives, two numbers well discussed by this summer affairs.

Arsenal now has several possible configurations for all areas of height – to the point that Bukayo Saka’s injury is not the disaster that it could have been – but everything is in the design of Arteta. There is not the same range for individual imagination. Thus, although Arteta’s ideal can be that opposition directors find impossible to predict his programs, he knows exactly what he wants with them.

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The shock of the potential title on Sunday could therefore represent more control against more liberation; order against unpredictability. The difference could also decide the season.

He has already defined all summer.

Some Arsenal sources argued that, rather than signing six different players, they should have gone larger on the budget by obtaining Martin Zubimendi, Eze… and Alexander Isak. The justification is that they should not have signed the game changers, to raise the team, rather than so many alternative options, which mainly deepened it.

Liverpool almost adopted this approach almost exactly. Of course, they have always signed four players – and want to make six with a new striker and Marc Guehi as a defender – but all are entries. Given that even the lateral rear playing in a different way with Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong can also be considered “game changes”.

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Wirtz’s style is obviously what people really mean when they use this description, and Isak would be a level beyond. Liverpool generally opted for players who change the limits.

Until now, these differences have manifested themselves in team objectives records. Liverpool scored seven but conceded four. Arsenal scored six but conceded any.

Despite these contrasts, there is still common ground, which is just as relevant for the title race.

All this is available in a landscape in the form of Guardiola Pep. These two managers have excited by the way they are disciples of this tactical school, and all they do is informed by these principles. They implement the same position game.

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This simply shows how influential Guardiola football has become, and how far it has spread, that two divergent interpretations can still start rightly as the same ideology.

This is perhaps a lesson that Ruben Amorim should take into account, because he adheres so dogmatically to his own ideas. More adaptation is possible in the same large ideology.

Slot seems duly following the line influenced by Andoni Iraola, now allowing greater individual freedom.

Guardiola’s own interpretation cannot yet be rejected so easily either. Manchester City can look like a different force when its new group internalizes its approach.

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And yet, the very fact that Liverpool and Arsenal were the first two last season, and are already two of the three teams with 100% of records this season, which could be the form of things to come.

If this is the case, this would be the first rivalry of the appropriate title not to present City since 2015-2016, perhaps even 2010-11.

Last season never really started, after all. Liverpool was too far in advance. He just sowed a few seeds.

A rivalry has developed between fans, certainly online. It was delighted by some of Arteta’s statements and how, yes, some at Arsenal think they are the best team. Liverpool did not beat them last season. Some initiates even express the frustration that Saka’s injury means that it will be the third successive meeting where Liverpool manages to face a team of Arteta without senior players.

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Against this, Liverpool can indicate their own problems, including midfielder now, but they don’t need it. They can simply indicate the trophy of the Premier League.

They went there and did it, in a way, Arsenal has not yet proven that they can.

Any animosity of these futile debates, mind, has not yet extended to the field, the touch or even the conference rooms.

Until now, there is respect between the coaches teams, and this extends from the executive boxes. There, FSG and the Kroenkes found a common cause in the discussion on the management of football.

Other stakeholders would say that in itself, is a sign of machinations led by the Americans on the future of the game. The two clubs have led a super league, after all.

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It is not as if there was a lot of resentment in history either, despite this rivalry having this vintage feeling because of their status praised in English football.

Liverpool and Arsenal could have been involved in the most famous title race of all, in 1988-1989, but it was one of the few. The main emotions that surrounded it were also solemnity and respect, given Hillsborough.

Apart from the exhilarating moment of Michael Thomas, there were only four other seasons where Liverpool and Arsenal finished as the first two. Among these, probably only 1972-1973 was an appropriate title race.

So, if it wants to become a race, the main difference could really be tactical approaches. Arsenal cannot even indicate the difference of 80 million pounds from last year, given what they have spent since.

This is why this Sunday’s match is unusually significant for a match so early in the season, in particular given all the unknowns.

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A stranger is whether Arsenal can finally intensify. Another is what Liverpool’s attack will try at some point.

This will take a new Arsenal Defense Test, which will be much more robust than Bournemouth or Newcastle.

A smaller counterattack game could be logical for Arteta, but Slot will surely not play a team as open as on Monday. Will his midfielder be reshaped? Is this where Eze without Saka will be even greater?

Charge all this is the need for a title declaration. Will Liverpool really go for this little more control, because will Arsenal allow a larger version?

The difference could decide the game, and perhaps the season.