Why Arsenal need to stop being delusional fans and give themselves every single excuse of their problems?

1. Liverpool have had their own injuries last year, worse than Arsenal's this year.

I don't think I need to remind you again what happened to our squad last season. It's always frustrating to have an injury crisis at key moments of the season. We've faced far worse injuries than Arsenal last season yet we were still able to keep pace for most of the season despite all this. It was a remarkable achievement that we even won a League Cup with a team with mostly academy kids against a full XI of Chelsea while having literally an entire first XI out. Even won Barcelona in the UCL without Salah and Firmino in the squad, not even making the bench. This was something that even rival fans had big respect for, in David-vs-Goliath moments like this. So what excuse do you have? We had it so bad last year, no one cared about us. 

Then when you have yours this year, you keep playing the victim card every time. So get on with it, and experience the very same pain we did last season.

2. We're just better even though our team is far from complete.

Now even with Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard fit and fully on form, Liverpool are just better than Arsenal in every way even with gaping holes in our squad. This season it shows that after 13 games in, we've already 9 points ahead while Alisson, Konate and Diogo Jota were sidelined to injury at that point. And that was our matchday against Man City of all people where we won 2-0. You can always check Transfermarkt to see the progression of each Match Day. We were just more consistent in every way. 

Our Matchday 13 without Alisson, Konate, Jota.

That was when Arsenal beat Wolves 5-2 away with Trossard, Saka, Martinelli, all of their forwards available.

MatchDay 13 when Arsenal was still fully fit with no injuries and after
we beat Manchester City 2-0 while injuries are already piling for a bit.

Our squad is definitely far from complete, because Jota, Nunez, Gomez are not reliable and Robbo is slowly feeling that his prime has left him completely.

3. Board doesn't back Arsenal??

Maybe if you go and track back past transfers to see how much Arsenal paid for their players compared to how much Liverpool spent over the last few years. Let's track back since 22/23 season.

Declan Rice
Trossard
Havertz
Jesus
Zinchenko
David Raya
Gabriel
Odegaard
Timber
Calafiori
Merino
Kiwior
Fabio Viera
Jorginho

Yes, the Kroenkes have backed Arsenal quite heavily over the last few years but they invested in the wrong people in the squad this year. Bear in mind, Rice, Havertz, Jesus, all cost big money.

The only ones we signed of note are
Gakpo
Nunez
Mac Allister
Gravenberch
Endo
Szoboszlai
Chiesa

We've actually have not had a major defender signing since Konate and we only signed Chiesa this season. The only effective window was the entire midfield squad. That was the only huge ass backing within this period but they have been immense for us, as well as Gakpo which is slowly becoming a bit of a bargain one as well. There were some like Carvalho, who moved on after just a couple seasons...etc. If we discount everything, we've not been backed heavily except this one whole midfield squad. Sure our recent transfers have a lot of misses too, but at least those we spent significant money or at least some money have been spent wisely.

4. The Right Mentality of the squad

The reason why sides like Man Utd and Man City are not performing this season because of the mentality of every individual in the squad. Key losses shouldn't rattle your morale. When we had a huge injury crisis in 20/21 with no Centerbacks, after a poor run of form, we literally fought like hell and with such confidence to even claim and snatch 3rd place at the end of the season. We had the right mentality going against Chelsea in last year's league cup with the kids. The squad at least its core members have been focused in games but also continue to have a buzz off the pitch. That's why we are where we are today, brimming with confidence as we play. That's why almost every year of Klopp's reign since the 2018/19 season, except the 20/21 year, we've been able to get at least 1 minor trophy every year consistently. But you know me, I want those major trophies.

5. The right manager

All squads need the right manager to do the job well or pull struggling sides out of the Abyss. After qualifying for 2 grand finals within the first time of asking, we knew Klopp was the best man for the job even after he arrived to help an ailing squad quarter way into the season. From there the trajectory has been going up and up and up, so it was a bit of a bummer that he announced his resignation all of a sudden. But he knew someone that would be the worthy man to take his reins in Arne Slot. Like Klopp, Slot knows how to win titles, both as a player with Sepp Van Den berg's old club Zwolle in his 2nd Dutch Division, and also as a manager in Feyenoord.

No doubt Arteta is a good coach in his own right. And by right as a player he should have a tonne of experience winning titles, having done so as a player at Rangers and a few minor ones at Arsenal. And he should have gained further coaching experience having been an understudy to Pep Guardiola for a couple years. 

However if after 5 years, after so much financial backing from your owners, you're still stuck in second place, even with a fully fit squad, something is seriously wrong here. With Man City collapsing this season it was a golden opportunity for LFC, Chelsea or Arsenal to have a go. You're watching one of your main rivals getting the premier league title, potentially twice because Arteta has witnessed Liverpool's title winning season when he first came in to replace Emery.

Why Liverpool are now pole favorites to win the Premier League 2024-25?

1. Good guts and bones.

In Klopp's final season in Liverpool, an all new-midfield force was dropped in immediately within a single window. With Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch, Wataru Endo and Dom Szoboszlai all arriving and even managed to integrated seamlessly under both managers without much tweaking and assimilating needed.

As a result, when it was time for him to call it, he left Slot a squad with proper guts and bones. Yes there were holes and STILL have some holes in the squad but not very gaping ones that really need a major look at.

Core-wise, the team has a solid pool of leaders and seniors at the core of LFC, Alisson, Trent, Robbo, Salah and Van Dijk. For Salah and Van Dijk, the two most senior of the squad members, still on top of their game. You expect them at this age to drop off, but noooooooo. They still can perform at the highest level, and they have been doing so brilliantly.

2. Squad Management

Going through a long and tough season in the Premier League always requires everyone to stay fresh and fit as best as possible. Keeping everyone available last season was a failure, with practically an entire first XI out at one point for a few weeks. So it was imperative for Slot's Physio team to tweak things when it comes to training.

According to reports, training rigor was scaled back slightly not to tire our guys early by not running the training courses all the way to the afternoon. Gym training and Spin training has always been a thing too.

There was way less of fatigue and risk to in-training injuries as a result, especially if we do get those 12.30pm lunchtime matches. That's why there was less long term injuries and none to ACL ruptures. There were still some muscle and hamstring issues, especially to Jota, Konate, and sometimes Trent and Alisson but their absences weren't as long.

3. Mohamed Salah, enough said.

Salah, best player, enough said. Our right winger legend gets an own section here for very obvious reasons. He has been available all season long and has been our most reliable source of goals, goals that won us games, goals that bailed us out of games that would have otherwise resulted in losses.... And you can tell, Mo just simply loves playing for us and has conditioned his body to be able to take the rigours this season. He simply knows how to get into pockets of space and just being there at the right place at the right time, spotting an opportune moment and launches attacks either scoring himself or assisting for others.

52 goal contributions and we're only just ended February and that equals his own record from his debut season.

4. Fortunes and Misfortunes in England.

While a lot of factors was needed internally in our team to help with the title charge, other events all start coming into play for us. There is for sure some immense luck. But I also believe in good karma for being patient with last year's injury crisis and battling PGMOL's corrupted referees.

To be honest, little did we know that other teams were facing some really bad spells of their own and believe me we have absolutely no part in this and we did not see this coming. And I'll only mention some teams only.

Manchester City had a hugely bad spell dated on the 31st October, crashing out of the EFL cup in the round of 16 against Tottenham. Following the loss, Pep Guardiola's team strung together an unneeded record of having only 1 win out of 13 matches. A lot of teams just wanted to go against them for a quick smash and grab job of points. They lost to Bournemouth (who has had an insanely good season to be fair), Sporting, Tottenham (4-0 thrashing at Home), us at LFC, and Man United, to name a few. And to be frank, they haven't really quite recovered from that bad spell even after signing heavily in January which is evident by their recent loss at their home ground against us. They CAN use the opportunity of Arsenal's current form to gain some ground for 2nd place but the PL title is definitely out of reach for them. 

To be fair to Chelsea, they started well under their new manager Maresca and had a very strong start, at least in the league, not so for the EFL cup, getting dumped out by Newcastle, pushing to 4th place initially. But results didn't really go their way which made they fall behind. As you can see, in the 2025 form table above, excluding matches in 2024, Chelsea are 13th, grabbing the same amount of points as Manchester United did this calendar year as well.

Manchester United, bluntly put, are having a VERY shocking season to say the least, under both Erik Ten Hag and Ruben Amorim. We knew Man Utd's already in a downward spiral since before the end of last season. However little did we expect Manchester United to go this low in the Premier League table this season. Safe to say, on the pitch and off-the-pitch, they are suffering.... badly. HITC sport just did a video why Man United are extremely bad under the helm of INEOS ownership. Pound for pound they are the worst team this season. But how in the hell did we not win them at home? However that said, they are still in the Europa League, after the latest edit from me is that they just crashed out of the FA Cup on penalties.

Arsenal are genuinely the only team left still trying to keep pace with us and I respect them for trying. However partly on them is when all their forwards went down to injury starting with Saka, then Jesus, Havertz and Martinelli, they failed to bring in a forward in January to really supplement whatever they have left. And since they have failed to score the last 3 games. Now even if Saka and the rest of their forwards do recover, they need to be re-assimilated and get back to fitness again. 

5. Tactical Genius of Arne Slot

A lot of the wins ultimately came down to the tactical adaptability of Arne Slot depending on squad fitness and who is available for each match day. Slot uses a 4-2-3-1 formation, a derivative and attacking version of the 4-3-3 by bringing a 10 further forward. The 10 still will have to act as a glue and a box-to-box midfielder but also bringing an extra man to the offensive line. If strikers are not fit, he will further tweak this formation. Like the recent 2-0 away win at Manchester City, he used 2 10s to make it a 4-2-4 or 4-4-2 thingy. Szoboszlai was very effective there, more so than Curtis Jones.

Through the mastery of Slot, he has also brought out the best in Szoboszlai and complete a full conversion of Ryan Gravenberch into LFC's full time defensive midfielder where he has been putting consistent world class performances ever since.

It's not all 100% win rate though. Lapses in bringing subs on too late or the wrong subs still prevail once a while. However, to be fair to Slot, he has started timing his substitutions as best he could, like bringing in Endo in the last 20-30 minutes to help see wins out which has been very effective to bring in that defense solidarity in and preserving clean sheets.

Ultimately for Slot, he will be ruthless with his subs when the situation calls for it.

6. Consistency, grit and strong away performances.

The thing which kept our march on the right direction is downright pure consistency in the league and stepped up most of the time when we needed to. Even if we down a goal or two, we try to ensure that we didn't lose. Only 1 loss in the league to Nottingham Forest is remarkable and we still remain unbeaten away from home.

10 wins and 5 draws without losses is far ahead of the next in the Away form, Arsenal with 7 wins, 5 draws and 2 losses. Of these 10 wins, we scored crushing yet crucial wins against Tottenham and both clubs of Manchester. In fact, we actually scored way more away from home, 38 goals than we did in Anfield at 28 and 35 points away vs 32 at home at the time of writing. Partly because we have played more away games, 15 away vs 13 home. Still a frightening stat.

The title run in will be more favorable for us as a result with 6 more home games to play vs 4 away games.

CONCLUSION

As of now, Liverpool need 7 wins in the league to be crowned champions. This number can be potentially be lower if Arsenal and any one else vying for the number 2 spot drop points. It's not really quite safe to say we are champions elect as anything can happen in football. However, the way that current trajectory is going, April would be the earliest month.

As it stands, the most points that Arsenal can get is 87, which will be a tall order as their forwards are not back yet. Again this number can be lower as they do have some tricky opponents. As far as the rest goes, Tottenham and Manchester United are mathematically out of the race as with Everton and the rest of the relegation strugglers. 

Manchester City as I mentioned, can still try and claw back 2nd or 3rd place though the sheer number of losses they have got means the title is definitely out of reach.

Huge surprise is Nottingham Forest in 3rd. However the range of points from 3rd to 10th is basically 7th points. So any team within this range can still have a shot to get some form of European football.

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LFC vs:
Home vs Southampton
Home vs Everton
Away vs Fulham
Home vs West Ham
Away vs Leicester
Home vs Tottenham
Away vs Chelsea
Home vs Arsenal
Away vs Brighton
Home vs Crystal Palace

ARSENAL vs:
Away vs Man United
Home vs Chelsea
Home vs Fulham
Away vs Everton
Home vs Brentford
Away vs Ipswich
Home vs Crystal Palace
Home vs Bournemouth
Away vs Liverpool
Home vs Newcastle
Away vs Southampton

PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE AS IT STANDS AS AT 03 MARCH 2025 8:30AM GMT +8

Man City 0 - 2 Liverpool FC - Another hand on the title? That was comfy, away at the Etihad even without a recognized 9.

Liverpool FC, fully capitalized on the loss of Arsenal against West Ham at home to play almost as freely as possible without the pressure of needing to do well here. Because to be honest, with Arsenal losing, at least I didn't need to feel so bad for dropping any points here against City. Instead LFC slammed a comfortably easy victory against them at their home turf. It was our first victory in the Etihad in almost 10 years, completing the double in the PL against Man City for the first time since Klopp's first season. Truth be told, even with low possession at 36%, actually we could have scored way more. But 2-0 is enough, we'll take that massive win either way.

Alisson: 8 / 10

Imperious and calm on his line. Did what he had to do and that aura seemed to have a positive effect to the rest of the backline. Needed to be reliable today after all the flak he has got recently, and he was, although truth be told that most of the attempts facing him was pretty routine and nothing he couldn't handle.

Trent: 7 / 10
Initiated the attack for the 1st goal

Marked the lowest since he was getting cooked by Doku. Getting dribbled past the most is not a stat you should be proud with. However it didn't have any ill effects because of Konate and Van Dijk being the solid partnership at the back as they are as usual. Also Jeremy Doku just didn't have the end product despite having a huge threat on that side.

His passings to the wings were still nonetheless crucial, which is great to see. His lob launching the ball was what initiated the attack for the 2nd goal.

Ibrahima Konate and Virgil Van Dijk: 9 / 10

Wow. These two just simply gel together just fine which is the reason they deserve an equal high score and deserve to be scored together as a pairing. So solid that they were able to shrug off almost any threat Man City threw at them with wave after wave of attacks. That's leading by example. Konate is almost as much as a captain as Van Dijk.

Robertson: 7.5 / 10

Offered plenty of solidity on the left side and going forward. Remained calm and cool on the ball.

Ryan Gravenberch: 8.5 / 10

Starting to return to his best after some questionable performances or dips lately. Hard worker today and it really showed, being solid on the ball and off it.

Alexis Mac Allister: 9 / 10
Key Pass that led to an assist and resulting 1st goal.

One of those background workers for the day. And that was a bloody good corner that came straight from the training ground, geez! Being the glue that tied the midfield together while also doubling as a DM at times, he kept it organized and tight together. 

Curtis Jones: 7.5 / 10

Could have scored LFC's third if not for VAR intervention. However the warning signs for Man City were already there which made it simple for LFC's kinda overcrowded midfield to carve the City defense on the counter. He did struggle on the ball initially in the first half, losing possession often back there but did grow into the game as it progressed. 

Dominik Szoboszlai: 9.5 / 10
Goal Contribution: 1 Assist and 1 Goal

The first of the 10s that started more like a 9.5 and really part of the SAS show that day. Well, the Szobo and Salah show. His best performance in a LFC shirt, easily. Was a constant menace in the City backline with his immense work rate. Collected the corner from Alexis and handed it to Salah on a plate. A beautiful team goal that really resembled something from training. Man City were completely rattled with this goal early before he added on the second goal, beating a backline that should have done a lot better.

Luis Diaz: 8 / 10

The only one of the two forwards since Jota and Gakpo are both not fully fit. He did provide a good attacking threat down the left hand side but just didn't really have the cutting edge to follow it through. Still helped loads in the defensive battle as he was almost doubling as an auxiliary Left Wing Back in a way.

Mohamed Salah: 9.5 / 10
Goal Contribution: 1 Assist and 1 Goal

Need not say more about the first goal, you can see Szoboszlai for that. Sure, the goal may have been a result of a deflection, but we won't really care and that was really enough to completely punish City's morale. Not long after, he collected a long range volley from Trent, juggling the City Backline before making his assist to Szoboszlai. That was his 30th goal and 20th assist in all competitions. His strength and vision was what made Man City totally thrown off, especially when he and Szobo were on the counterattack. He just needed to be at the right place at the right time, which he always was.

SUBSTITUTES

Wataru Endo: 7.5 / 10 (for Jones)

Solidified what was already a nicely compact midfield that made it even harder for Man City to follow through. 2 big tackles and 2 ground duels won in that short 20 minute cameo was nothing to sneeze at.

Kostas Tsimikas: 7 (for Robertson)

Didn't really need to do anything much to further nullify the attack and allowed Robertson time for abit more rest to prep for Newcastle.

Gakpo, Elliott, Quansah: NR (For Diaz, Salah and Trent Alexander Arnold)

Came in too late to be of effect offensively but they manage to see the game out and claim the clean sheet.

Arne Slot: 10

This was considered to be his biggest game and test especially after dropping points against Aston Villa and Everton. Knowing not winning here would have serious implications in the title charge. Instead he got a statement win, with his men playing comfortably and confidently without needing to really get out of 2nd gear.

To be honest, going in kinda 4-2-4-0 without a recognized 9 was a big gamble, but kinda enforced as Gakpo and Jota weren't fit enough to start. And for this game, we needed the legs especially on the counter.

However 4 midfielders was the correct play to overcrowd the center of the park to provide an additional shielding in front of the backline made things even more compact. 2 half-wingers with Jones and Szoboszlai could still pivot front and back. It was Szoboszlai that eventually caused some of the biggest headaches in the City's backline. The new formation did cause City to be thrown off balance. Also having Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister overlapping as defensive cover helped big time whenever one of our CBs needed to plunge forward to stop an attack. That make sure we'll always have a line of at least 4 men or more in front of Alisson at any given time.

This was LFC's first double against City in the league in almost 10 years, and Slot only needed to do it against Guardiola for the very first time.