Liverpool vs Arsenal: Royal Rumble Begins

Strangely I am not a big fan of Wrestlemania, WWE or RAW but I couldn’t stop the whole ‘Royal Rumble’ ideology from coming to mind every time I see our fixtures in February. It’s like the Universe has decided to test us against the very best for us to prove that we deserve to be on top of the league for so long.

Arsenal the outsider, almost like an Orphan alone in the four square ring, it’s dark and the music is trembling and then one by one all these mugsmashers start coming into the ring from all corners,  1^st in is an Old champion whose only claim to glory was championships won before Television, then comes in a more recent local champion that has been hampered terribly by the death of his trainer and then lastly the biggest of them all with its recently won European and World title, standing 20ft above the ground with records from the Sun to Jupiter in all its might and with one stride crosses the four ropes that makes the ring and stares straight at us….#snapp out of it…it’s not that serious is it? 🙂

So its Liverpool next in line to taste the fiery Gunners and it promises to be an exciting game as the way Brendan Rodgers sets up his team to play is what Arsene usually prefers from opposing teams.  A team set up to attack and with the added impetus of playing at home we can expect Liverpool to be very forward thinking in their approach to the game. The SAS are still tearing defences the same way they were before we hosted them at the Emirates last year, coincidentally that was another period when most people expected us to falter and here we are again with the same kind of scenario and to kick off these set of fixtures is Liverpool, a team we have not lost to at Anfield in 7 years.

Records are meant to be broken and that particular one would not be anyone’s mind when the game kicks off a Suarez would be looking to quelling talks about him not scoring against big teams. When Liverpool played us at the Emirates Brendan made the job easier for us by sticking to his 3 defenders but either due to injuries or final realization that it just wouldn’t work he has resorted to playing four across the back again. It would be a huge task keeping the Liverpool attack quiet , Coutinho is intelligent, Henderson is industrious, Sterling seems to be coming back to form, Sturridge doesn’t seem to have suffered much from being away through injury and Suarez has just been Suarez and his stats just show what kind of talent he is.

How Arsenal deal with the balls getting to Suarez and Sturridge will hugely determine what we get from the game, we did a great job of keeping them out of the game at the Emirates but Liverpool’s home form this season has been very good. Flamini is out of this encounter and as much as I am not a big fan of the ‘Flamteta’ set up in front of our defense should we have a slender lead with 10minutes to go into the game, Flamini is the kind of player you would want to be bringing on.

Another midfield decision we would be looking at is what the manager does with The Ox as he had a splendid game against Palace with Jack Wilshere back into the squad. When it comes to introducing players on the back of an injury we can call Wenger ‘The Cautious One’ and I would be hugely surprised if Wilshere starts tomorrow. Midfield however has never been the part of the pitch were we really have to think much about as anyone who sits there alongside Ozil is capable to do so.

Can’t help laughing every time I see this pic…

Liverpool’s weakness is in defence and Mignolet seems to be making loads of mistakes recently which should make for easy pickings for a rejuvenated Cazorla and an efficient Giroud. Kolo Toure and  Cissokho are suspect  in the kop defence and they haven’t seemed good to me defensively every time I have watched them this season, Cazorla and Ozil have the ability to glide past them and we would expect our attackers to take full advantage of the pace that is lacking in the Liverpool defence.

Prediction

Liverpool 1 – Arsenal 3

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Should make for a lovely encounter and its early so would be nice to pick up our points and watch all our rivals lose. Enjoy the game and hopefully we remain Top of the League at the end of the weekend and if you interested in how that Royal Rumble thingy ended? Your guess is as good as mine, We knocked everyone out of the ring!!

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