{"id":1103153,"date":"2019-08-24T19:59:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-24T18:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?p=1103153"},"modified":"2019-08-24T20:27:48","modified_gmt":"2019-08-24T19:27:48","slug":"liverpool-3-1-arsenal-match-analysis-salah-mane-firmino","status":"publish","type":"features","link":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/features\/liverpool-3-1-arsenal-match-analysis-salah-mane-firmino\/","title":{"rendered":"With Salah playing like this, don’t bet against Liverpool equalling one of Man City’s Premier League records"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool thrashed Arsenal 3-0 on Saturday evening with Mohamed Salah stealing the show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liverpool’s magical front three are all phenomenal footballers in their own right and the beauty of that for Liverpool is they can afford for one or even two of them to be perhaps off-colour and there’s always a chance that one of them will just explode and carry the side to glory. Rationing out the genius is what allowed Liverpool to amass the mammoth total of 97 points last season.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/audioboom.com\/posts\/7349082-liverpool-s-new-signing-the-unsung-norwich-city-heroes-propping-up-the-pukki-party<\/p>\n

Well, so far this season we’ve seen Sadio Man\u00e9 emerge as the hero in the UEFA Super Cup with two goals. Although he was ably assisted that day by Roberto Firmino who came off the bench to turn the tide of the match and create both of Man\u00e9’s goals. Then last week against Southampton it was Man\u00e9 again who was the star of the show, scoring and then setting up Firmino.<\/p>\n

So that’s two of Liverpool’s forwards that had shone, Man\u00e9 moreso. Salah meanwhile had cut a dangerous but frustrated figure. The Egyptian was full of pace and movement but his finishing had looked off. He bagged a goal against Norwich, but that’s Norwich<\/em>. He ran and ran, then ran some more; but he couldn’t impact the scoresheet even against the wide-open Chelsea defence.<\/p>\n

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But today against Arsenal he looked bright from the off, fizzing into 1v1’s and making those kind of darting runs that exhaust opponents trying to mark him. One second you think you’ve got a handle on him and then you turn around and he’s 10 yards away from you bearing down on goal and it takes a desperate lunge from a team-mate to stop him scoring.<\/p>\n

Sticking primarily to the right-flank, Salah targeted the space in and around Nacho Monreal. The Spaniard is a solid defender but lacks the mobility he used to have and thus \u2013 with Arsenal’s diamond shape offering oodles of space out wide for any attacker who fancied it \u2013 Salah had almost free reign to dominate the Spaniard.<\/p>\n

20-year-old Joe Willock was the midfielder on that side and he could do little to help. For some reason Unai Emery opted to keep Lucas Torreira on the bench and as a result there was no one to protect Monreal. Perhaps Emery gambled on being able to dominate the ball with that diamond, and at least sit on Roberto Firmino to prevent him from orchestrating things as he often does.<\/p>\n