Possession – An obvious one to start with. Limiting the amount of possession that Arsenal get is crucial to getting a positive result at the Emirates. Like Barcelona, Arsenal can kill teams off very quickly if afforded too much time on the ball and one of the reasons why their style is so successful is that their one touch passing gives an opposition defence very little chance to set itself positional wise. A dilemma you have when defending against Arsenal is whether you should keep a high or deep defensive line. One of the best ways of stifling a team in possession is to have a high pressing game, forcing the ball all the way back to the goalkeeper and pressing him to hit the ball long and give away possession.
Real Madrid did this to Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup recently and although Barca had markedly less possession, the Madrid defence still conceded five goals over two legs because the high pressing led to a high line at the back. You need to have quick players to play a high line and good discipline to ensure the offside trap works. If you can do it though, Arsenal will have less possession and fewer chances to create goal-scoring opportunities.
Defence – What Liverpool demonstrated against Sunderland last week though was the complete opposite of a high line. The back four played very deep, and if they play the same way against Arsenal they will probably only have 30% possession. A deep line against Arsenal does have its merits and the close proximity between defence and midfield means you can crowd central areas where the Gunners like to create opportunities. I feel that if the Reds are to be positive and take control of the match, they must play a higher line than they did against Sunderland.
Set Pieces – It should be one of Liverpool’s strengths with Charlie Adam delivering free kicks and corners to the likes of Andy Carroll and Daniel Agger. In addition, defending set pieces is Arsenal’s Achilles heel. Last season, they conceded the greatest percentage of goals from set pieces in the entire Premier League, and the Reds must capitalise on this weakness and punish any mistakes from the Arsenal backline.
Wide Areas – With Carl Jenkinson expected to play left full back against Liverpool, Stewart Downing could be a critical player in proceedings. Although I would prefer Downing to play the majority of matches on the left hand side, you have to take advantage of the weaknesses in the opposition and I doubt Dirk Kuyt will be half as troubling to Jenkinson than Downing will be with his pace. He should start on the right hand side to see what joy he can get in the opening minutes of the match, and he can still switch back to the left hand side during the course of the match.
Aerial Threat – Vermaelen and Koscielny have always been suspect under the high ball in my opinion, but this doesn’t give license to the Reds to go route one. One of the biggest problems against Sunderland was that the Reds went direct too early, and they lumped up aimless balls to Carroll who had no one to knock down the ball to. The aimless long ball tactics led to possession being given away, leading to the Reds defence moving deeper and not have having the ball in dangerous areas of the pitch. Losing such balls to Arsenal could mean we lose possession for a very long period putting unnecessary pressure on the defence. This cannot be allowed to happen against the Gunners. Using Carroll smartly is critical and ensuring that we don’t bypass the creative talents of Suarez, Adam and Downing is crucial too. Get the ball down, keep possession until you get into dangerous areas and then force Arsenal to deal with Carroll from diagonal balls which he can lay off to team mates, crosses, as well as set pieces.
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Liverpool will do well if King Kenny can stop making Carroll a one dimensional ariel ball player, I’m sure Carroll can play ball on the ground we should stop all these long haul to Carroll. We are not playing for him to score we are playing to win like did when he was injured last season that other players were scoring freely. Kenny should let other player play freely. Thank you.
let us hope kenny will see it that way and implement some of the ideas from the writer and ugoknowtunji.
saturday will be andys day !