Without fooling ourselves, the table before tonight is a fair indication of what the Premiership has been so far this season. Actually, when I look back at our fixture list, I see that it’s not really the defeats against Manchester United and Chelsea which really damaged us but rather the crazy 2-2 draw away at West Ham, the defeat at Sunderland and also, in a way, the home draw against Everton.

We are nine points from the top, we all know that, and if we are to produce a second comeback this season, we must win all our remaining games, starting from today’s, although such an achievement seems a typical case of easier said than done I’m afraid.

Before moving on with the preview, a big thank you to you, the reader, as I’ve just realised that every month for the last five, we broke all records in terms of hits. We put a lot of effort to make this website possible so it’s nice to see this effort appreciated by many.

Liverpool

Had someone told me last month that the distance between the two teams before this game would have been of only five points, I wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Instead, the Reds know that they can move to only two points from our third place if they manage to cause a major upset at the Emirates.

I have to admit I stopped following them after they dropped out of the top four but they are on a one-month unbeaten run which is not good to see. What is “funny” is that many blamed Robin van Persie’s injury as the reason why we took nothing from our last two games, asking how good Liverpool would be without Torres. Well the Spaniard will be missing tonight so maybe this is a very easy game after all, no?

Favourite line-up

Dear me, this one is so tough to call. Based on what we’ve seen against the top two, I stand by my decision to drop Manuel Almunia and gamble with Vito. Also, Gael Clichy, clearly needs more games to find his fitness level after the injury but an important game like today’s should not be amongst them. Not that I fully trust Traore, but we don’t have much choice, do we?

Seriously, going forward, we need to understand who really is up for the task and who is not. For example Bacary Sagna looks like someone needing a rest so in comes Emmanuel Eboue who was full of energy at Stamford Bridge.

Eduardo is still out and Nicklas Bendtner will start from the bench. Now call me crazy, call it fantasy football, but I would move Abou Diaby up front. What the hell, if he can shield the ball enough for Andrey to move up and punish the team he so-much loves to punish, even that would be enough for me. For sure is that the Russian, alone, up front, may have worked out the first time we saw it, but failed after that.

One final change I would do is to start with Tomas Rosicky and drop Samir Nasri, who didn’t convince me in his last two games.

Pre-match Interviews

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger is confident the Reds can defeat Arsenal even if it will not be an easy game.

He said:

We just have to go for the three points in each game.

We need to have a good result against Arsenal, that is the most important game right now.

Arsenal are a good team but every game in this league is tough so we need to go in with the same attitude as against Everton.

Everyone in the team knows we have the right attitude.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger declared he gives little or no importance to who made mistakes during games, but prefers to sit down, analyse the mistakes and understand how these can be avoided in future games.

Speaking on Tuesday, the Frenchman said:

It is not down to me to come out and say who made a mistake. I believe it is important that I show support to my players and think collectively about how we cannot repeat the mistakes that happened to us in the last two games.

It looks to me quite easy to solve having looked at the way we have conceded the last two goals and that is it. It is important that we support each other and show solidarity and show that people who try to destroy that are not right.

This is a team that really wants to win and you have seen that on Sunday until the last minute of the game.

Of course when you find yourself running after the score and you are playing against big teams, you threaten to be caught on the counter-attack and that’s what [happened with] the second goal on Sunday.

When it is 0-0, we don’t over-commit but we have found ourselves in the position in the last two games where we have to take massive gambles. That puts you in a difficult situation.

The Gunning Hawk Coverage

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