Arsenal head to Anfield on Saturday to face Liverpool and according to Michael Owen, it’s their defence that will let Mikel downtown.
The Gunners have been on a roll in the past few months, not suffering a loss since they went down 5-0 at the hands of Manchester City back in the final week of August.
And this fine run has helped them climb to the fifth spot, just two points behind Liverpool. These outstanding performances mean Arsenal no longer are the major underdogs going into this encounter but Owen still believes that Liverpool are going to come out of this with all three points since the Gunners have a shaky defence.
He wrote for BetVictor: “This fixture has produced some classics down the years, could we see another here? The Reds followed up that draw against Brighton with a defeat against West Ham and Jurgen Klopp was understandably not happy. They’ve had some defensive issues in recent weeks and that will need sorting.
“That’s now three wins in a row for Arsenal and just one goal conceded in that time. This will be a major test of where they are though.
“I fancy Liverpool to get back to winning ways here. I can see Arsenal scoring but I don’t trust their defence, 3-1 Liverpool.”
Will the Arsenal defence be the deciding factor against Liverpool?
Arsenal’s first-choice defensive pairing this season has been Ben White and Gabriel and at the start of the campaign, these two looked really flustered and out of ideas.
They were constantly being bullied by the physical strikers and it was almost certain that this pairing was not going to work.
Since then White and Gabriel have managed to turn things around and after matchweek 11, Arsenal have a goal difference of 0 and have conceded only 13 goals.
Arsenal have picked up more Premier League points than Liverpool in 2021 😲 pic.twitter.com/LulF7bDKl1
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) November 19, 2021
While this might seem a lot when compared to Chelsea or Man City but the reality is that Liverpool have conceded 11 despite having defenders like Konate/Matip and Virgil Van Dijk.
Van Dijk is still one of the best defenders in Europe but the Dutchman is no longer feared within the English circuit. Right before the break, West Ham United thumped three goals past the Liverpool defence.
Separately, Arsenal’s defence might not be able to stand up against Salah and co but they can certainly balance things out on the other end of the pitch.
Mikel Arteta will certainly have full faith in his centre-backs as well as his full-backs but the Arsenal manager knows that to pick up three points his side just have to score one more goal than Liverpool.
