Three reasons why Liverpool shouldn’t ‘panic’ about leaders Arsenal: ‘This is football, isn’t it?’
Liverpool should not worry about the form of Arsenal after the Gunners jumped ahead of them in the Premier League table, according to Reds expert David Lynch.
Arne Slot’s side won all five of their opening Premier League matches to go five points ahead of their nearest rivals in the early standings.
However, a nightmare week saw them lose all three matches in all competitions with Crystal Palace, Galatasaray and Chelsea all defeating Liverpool.
The two Premier League losses saw Arsenal come from five points behind to lead the Reds by one point in the Premier League table.
But Lynch has explained why he is relaxed about Liverpool’s title pursuit despite the Gunners taking control of the race ahead of the international break.
Lynch told Sports Mole: “I’m not panicky about it. I know now they’re the form team at the moment, but everyone [gets carried away]. This is football, isn’t it?
“They’re supposedly the best thing since sliced bread, but all the weaknesses we talked about in the period where they dropped points are exactly true now. They haven’t alleviated any of the question marks around their creativity.
“Five open play goals out of 14? That’s crazy. You can’t win a league title with 36% of your goals coming from open play. That doesn’t seem feasible. No one is talking about that as a massive issue for Arsenal. Defensively, hugely impressive, but there’s going to be a week where the corners won’t go in or they don’t win a penalty.”
As well as struggling to score from open play, Lynch also reckons Arsenal have had an easier start to the season than Liverpool.
Lynch added: “There was so much chat before the season about how difficult Arsenal’s start was, but if you look at it in context, their average position for the teams they’ve been facing is much lower than Liverpool’s.
“They’ve faced Forest early in the season – one of the easiest games you could have. They’ve had to face Manchester City at home, to come to Liverpool. There’s no question that those are difficult games, but they’ve also faced West Ham at home, Nottingham Forest at home and Leeds at home.
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“That’s the teams that are in 19th, 17th and 15th in the league. Liverpool would have loved some games like that. The lowest Liverpool have faced is Burnley in 18th, and that was their first big home game that they got since coming back up to the Premier League – they hadn’t lost a home game in over a year.”
While Lynch is backing Slot’s in-game management to have a big impact on a close title race, he continued: “The quality of this manager [is great]. We’ve seen the amount of tactical changes he’s spotted in games that have won points for Liverpool.
“It’s just those on-pitch relationships and how quickly he can help build them. Hopefully they come back after the international break, fixtures get slightly easier and they can get on a run that gets them top again. It’s not as disastrous as people have made out.
“They will hope to fall on the right side of those close margins going forward, and maybe we see them click better once the fitness is there for Isak. Maybe Wirtz now has enough experience in the league to start to find things a little easier because the games are going to be easier.”
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