Arsenal had to lose the opportunity to qualify for the 4th round of the FA Cup at home, London’s Emirates Stadium, Sunday when they had to admit Liverpool’s lead with two goals without reply. An own goal from Jakub Kiwior and a late goal from Luis Diaz finally brought Juergen Klopp’s Liverpool squad to the fourth round of the FA Cup.
This result is really very worrying for Mikel Arteta’s squad. The Gunners’ squad ended 2023 with back-to-back Premier League defeats. They want to start the opening match of the 2024 new year with a win as they try to achieve it against Liverpool in the FA Cup.
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Their struggle with many opportunities in front of Liverpool’s goal failed to produce a single goal for an important victory. That night the composition of the first eleven of the Arsenal squad underwent several changes. Mikel Arteta made three changes from the team that lost at Fulham last New Year’s Eve.
Jorginho entered the midfield as a defensive midfielder while Kai Havertz acted further forward to replace Eddie Nketiah. There is the figure of Reiss Nelson filling Gabriel Martinelli’s place on the wing. This time, goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale got the opportunity to guard the Gunners’ goal, replacing David Raya.
Meanwhile, the Liverpool squad was without Virgil van Dijk, who was replaced by Jarell Quansah and Harvey Elliott came into play on the right side of the front line. In midfield there are midfielders Cody Gakpo replacing Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister replacing Wataru Endo who is on international duty with Japan.
Before Arsenal’s own goal occurred ten minutes before the match ended, both teams played tightly, aggressively attacking each other with a 4-3-3 formation. In the early minutes an Arsenal goal opportunity came from Martin Odegaard. But his shot hit the crossbar. Likewise, Reiss Nelson and Kai Havertz wasted their chances to score a goal for the hosts.
Meanwhile, in the Liverpool camp, Alexander Arnold’s shot also hit Aaron Ramsdale’s crossbar, saving Arsenal from conceding. Entering the second half, the match became even more interesting because they again created several goal opportunities against the opponent’s goal. Arsenal again had a golden opportunity through Bukayo Saka. However, this young English winger was unable to properly convert Kai Havertz’s cross.
Luis Diaz brings Liverpool through to round 4 of the FACup (Skysports Photo).
Liverpool’s opportunity to counterattack also failed to produce a goal, when the collaboration between two strikers, Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz, failed to score.
The disaster finally happened 10 minutes before the end of the match when Kiwior headed the ball from Alexander Arnold’s cross as a save but it went past Aaron Ramsdale and into his own net. A fatal goal that really hurt Arsenal fans. The fans’ concern became even more complete when Luis Diaz scored Liverpool’s winning goal in the 90+5 minute, knocking the Gunners out of the FA Cup.
After the match, Mikel Arteta had to admit again his failure to achieve victory for his squad. He captioned Skysports (7/1/24): “The performance was good and the number of chances was good. We just had to win the game, but we lost and we didn’t take advantage of it. To win the game we need to take advantage.”
The tone of disappointment from this Spanish coach. Of course, Arteta had to be disappointed with the performance of their attackers who were very poor in completing several golden opportunities to break through Liverpool’s goal.
Despite this, Arteta still provides full support to his squad even though he has to admit that the factor that is hampering his squad is finishing in front of the opponent’s goal. Arteta also understands very well that in the future the pressure will be increasingly heavy on the Arsenal squad in facing the Premier League competition.
With this result, the Gunners have experienced three consecutive defeats in all competitions. They have only achieved one win in their last seven matches. Mikel Arteta is clearly experiencing a difficult moment ahead of him. He needs to find an answer to the difficulty of scoring goals for his squad before returning to the Premier League.
Good luck Mikel Arteta and happy smiles to Juergen Klopp who succeeded in bringing Liverpool to the 4th round of the FA Cup.
ASL
