By Daniel Finton (Deputy Editor)
Arsenal kicked off the 2020/2021 season with an emphatic win over the newly promoted Fulham on Saturday. Now, in the next fixture which is on the forthcoming Saturday, the gunners are set to square up against struggling West Ham, who lost their first match to Newcastle. The third fixture for Mikel Arteta’s men comes against that of Liverpool, who ironically happen to be the exact same side we played in our third League game last season.
For those who don’t remember, last season, we kicked off the Premier league campaign in a promising manner with an away win at Newcastle and then a narrow victory at home to the maroon donning Clarets, under former head coach Unai Emery. Our second game this season will also be against maroon opposition and then we will be off to Liverpool who, like last season, was our first really tricky away game.
While no Arsenal supporters should get ahead of themselves, it is creepily coincidental that the pattern of this season is so alike to the one of the last, especially for someone as superstitious as me. We do still have to beat the downward spiralling West Ham, where we’re certainly favourites, but anything can happen.
I honestly think we’ll cruise past the Hammers with ease, the be all and end all is the away match against Jurgen Klopp’s Gegenpressing machine.
It’s not a matter of if we lose we’ll have a dire season that starts the downward trajectory after the loss like last season, but it’s the principal. Over the years, we have had a pathetic record at Anfield and that has to change. I'm slightly worried that if we do indeed lose, the newfound confidence the players have seemingly gained will burst to smithereens. While they are truly a force to be reckoned with, we should be too but the fact is over the years we just haven't been. Only recently marks the time that we've become slightly less feebly useless. And when I say recently, I mean last season when we only shipper three goals at the iconic stadium and not five.
Mikel Arteta must do everything he can to get any kind of a result in our third game in hopes of maintaining good form going into the rest of the season. There seems to be a cultural shift at the club and the most prominent aspect of said transformation is the fact that we now seem to be more competitive against the bigger sides. Furthermore, if there’s ever a good time to go to Anfield, it’s now, when they’re without their vocal home backing. So many times in the past we’ve seen our players melt under the heat of the Scouse atmosphere. This pressure won’t be there on the 28th September.
Though this season’s fixture schedule is eerily alike that of the last at the beginning, Arsenal must be sure that the 2020/2021 campaign has no similarities on the pitch as last year’s pathetic effort. The third match is massive for the club going into the rest of the season, but first we must get nothing short of a win in our first home match to David Moyes’ men.
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