Revealing Preview Of Liverpool vs Arsenal Plus A Look Back At The Game From Last Season

Revealing Preview Of Liverpool vs Arsenal Plus A Look Back At The Game From Last Season

Sunday afternoon sees the big matchup of the weekend, with Liverpool hosting Arsenal at Anfield, a game that thrilled the home fans last season as the rampant Reds ran out 5-1 winners over a stunned Gunners side.

A devastating opening 20-minute early last February saw Liverpool notch up four goals and could have had even more, with two goals from defender Martin Skrtel inside 10 minutes, followed by another from Raheem Sterling 6 minutes later and a fourth from Daniel Sturridge on the 20 minute mark. Sterling got his second on the 56th minute to wrap up the Reds’ tally of five, but what was probably most remarkable was that three LFC players with surnames starting with “S” scored and Luis Suarez was not among them – wonder what odds punters could have gotten on that?


Mikel Arteta converted a consolation penalty for the Gunners 20minutes from the end but it was a huge wake up call for the then league leaders, who were comprehensively outplayed on a day to forget for Arsène Wenger.

We can only hope for a better start this year from the Gunners who must be hopeful of exacting some sweet revenge for last season and surely Wenger will have his men ready and raring to go from the starting whistle as they come into the game on the back of two consecutive 4-1 confidence boosting wins over 2 good sides in the always tricky Galatasaray and the in-form Newcastle who had just ended Chelsea’s attempt at invincibility over a season.

To see what fans of both Clubs may be thinking about the fixture this season, we also looked at the Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football data from this game last season, to see what players were picked for the lineups last year.

Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is a game similar to “Football Manager”, but applied to live football, where you manage your favourite Club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. When fans play the game, the Beat Your Manager team can measure the popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the starting lineup, substitutes bench or not selected at all.

The app ran for the 2013/4 EPL season and is currently inactive while the developers are creating the revised version – watch this space and in the meantime you can check out their Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/beatyourmanager and follow them on Twitter – https://twitter.com/beatyourmanager

Formation: A solid 4-4-2 for LFC fans but a more attacking 4-3-3 for the Gunners

An overwhelming 56 per cent of Liverpool fans opted for a solid 4-4-2 formation for this game, with the next-most popular formation an attacking 4-3-3, selected by 26 per cent of Reds.

Arsenal fans scented blood and went for an all-out 4-3-3 (34 per cent) with a flexible double-pivot 4-2-3-1 second choice, selected 22 per cent of Gunners.

This year it is anyone’s guess what Brendan Rodgers will choose for his formation  considering his choices for recent matches. We could see Ricky Lambert or Raheem Sterling as a lone striker as part of a 4-5-1 or could he send out a 4-4-2 with both players upfront.

Goalkeeper: Szczęsny a comfortable first choice, but Mignolet doesn’t rest so easy

Fans of both Clubs did not go for any surprises in goal, with both team’s regular number 1 selected for goalkeeping duty.

Simon Mignolet was the goalkeeper of choice for Liverpool fans, but was also 2nd-from-bottom in the popularity stakes, with a 79 per cent rating from LFC fans. Wojciech Szczęsny was in for Arsenal with a much more emphatic 100 per cent rating from Gunners, making him the club’s most popular player for this match.

Both real-life Managers agreed with fans, going for the identical options between the posts.

Despite good performances by Damian Martínez in recent times we can expect to see Wojciech Szczęsny in the Arsenal goal but the Liverpool goal is a different story as last year’s choice Simon Mignolet has been benched indefinitely and has been replaced by Australian number two Brad Jones who helped the side defeat high-flying Bournemouth in mid-week after an inauspicious first game back in the Premier League vs Man United last weekend.

Defence: Fans and Manager in perfect harmony

With injuries to Mamadou Sakho, Daniel Agger, José Enrique, Glen Johnson and Seb Coates, the choices in defense were limited for LFC fans, so it was no surprise that both fans and Manager went for an identical back four.

Martin Skrtel was the club’s most popular defender and jointly most popular player, rewarding the fans for perfect 100 per cent rating with two goals. Kolo Touré (95 per cent) was just behind Skrtel, with Aly Cissokho next on 92 per cent and Jon Flanagan (85 per cent) just taking the final position in the back four with fans.

Arsenal did not have any injury worries in defence and fans identified three clear favourites in defence.

Bacary Sagna was Arsenal’s most popular defender, with a staggering 98 per cent rating making him jointly the club’s 2nd most popular player for this match. Per Mertesacker was a close second on 94 per cent, with Laurent Koscielny (90 per cent) just behind. Nacho Monreal took up the fourth spot in defence further behind with fans, on 72 per cent. Similarly to Brendan Rodgers, Wenger went with the fans’ lineup for the back four.

This year the Arsenal back four could be the strongest it has been in a while with a Debuchy, Chambers, Mertesacker, Gibbs  combination looking like a good option plus they have the exciting Bellerin available and Monreal is rumoured to be fit to play if needed while Liverpool can only hope for some decent performances from whoever plays after last week’s debacle vs United.

Midfield: LFC fans agree with Rodgers in midfield, while Wenger has the extra man

With Lucas Leiva injured, Liverpool fans had three clear favourites in midfield. Club captain Steven Gerrard was the most popular midfielder, but his 95 per cent rating from fans was only enough to make him jointly (with Touré) the club’s 4th most popular player for this match.

Philippe Coutinho (92 per cent) was a close second, with Jordan Henderson (90 per cent) in third place. After Henderson, approval ratings dropped away, but Raheem Sterling still got a very respectable 74 per cent from LFC fans and rewarded both fans and Manager with a goal in both halves of the match.

Arsenal’s midfield was injury-hit (as usual last season), with Abou Diaby, Mathieu Flamini, Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey all out for this game.

However, this had the effect of making the four midfield choices pretty obvious for Gunners fans; Santi Cazorla taking the top spot as Arsenal’s most popular midfielder, his 98 per cent fan rating making him jointly (with Sagna) the club’s 2nd-most popular player. Close behind Cazorla was Mesut Özil, with an impressive 96 per cent rating approval, with Mikel Arteta (82 per cent) close behind and Jack Wilshere way behind with fans (48 per cent), taking up the remaining spots.

As he did with the back four, Rodgers stuck with the fans’ lineup in midfield as well. Wenger agreed with fans on the four most-popular midfielders, but opted to also include Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (38 per cent fan rating) in a five-man midfield setup.

This year Ramsey, Rosicky, Wilshere, Ozil, Koscielny and Arteta are all out while Walcott is back in training but is rather unlikely to feature as he is only just getting over his groin injury sustained on England duty. Oxlade-Chamberlin could play as he will be facing a late fitness but has a decent chance. Cazorla has been on fire of late and must be a man to watch as well as the red-hot Sanchez.

Forwards: After this match, should it be SSS (Skrtel, Sterling, Sturridge) or SAS?

Both Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge got perfect 100 per cent ratings with LFC fans for this game, making them jointly (with Skrtel) Liverpool’s most popular players. They were also the natural choice for Rodgers upfront for this game and Sturridge rewarded both fans and Manager with the final goal of the early 4-goal blitz in the opening 20 minutes of the match.

With Yaya Sanogo injured, Arsenal’s 1st choice forwards were clear-cut for Gunners fans; Lukas Podolski was Arsenal’s most popular forward and 7th-most popular player for this match, with an 88 per cent approval rating from Gunners fans, while Olivier Giroud lined up in 2nd place for fans, on a still-respectable 76 per cent rating.

Rodgers again agreed with his fanbase on the front two, while Wenger opted to bench fan-favourite Podolski and instead start Giroud in a lone striker role on a day that ended in disappointment and frustration for the visitors.

This year it will be interesting to see who Wenger selects as he has the impressive Giroud available who looks to be getting stronger by the game and Welbeck must be a strong possibility given his Manchester connections and Podolski is bang in form and even Sanogo has looked good of late so it will be a conundrum for the boss to solve as to who will play alongside the irrepressible Sanchez and in what formation. Walcott is back in training but as previously reported is unlikely to make it.

As for Rodgers it is not hard to see him continuing with the Sterling striker experiment as the reds look to build on their midweek win over Bournemouth where Sterling looked like he was returning to form with his brace and he may just continue as the striker given the lack of goals from the other choices so we can expect to see Balotelli and Lambert as “Plan B” options.

We see Arsenal taking the points this time around and we expect Sanchez to show Liverpool just what they missed when they could not sign him as the Gunners will run out either 3-1 or 2-0 winners with Giroud, Sanchez and/or Welbeck amongst the scorers.

Have a look at the interesting infographics from last year’s game on our Facebook Page supplied by our friends at BeatYourManager.com