Three Things We Learned From Arsenal’s 2-1 Win Over Liverpool

Arsenal edged past Liverpool by a 2-1 margin at the glittering Emirates on Sunday night in what was  an absolute cracking encounter in the fifth round of the FA Cup. The Gunners ensured they took revenge of the 5-1 humiliation at Anfield by knockings the Reds out from England’s oldest cup competition. Arsenal will now face Everton in the quarter finals as manager Arsene Wenger looks to end a barren run of about nine years without a major piece of silverware in the cabinet.

It was Oxlade- Chamberlain opened the scoring for the Gunners before he fed Lukas Podolski doubled the lead for the home side. Liverpool however fought back thanks to Steven Gerrard’s  just around the hour mark but the home side managed to hold on to secure a famous win and progress ahead in the knockout competition, which has lost its sheen in the past few years. Here are the three things we learnt from the feisty encounter.

Arsenal showed more desire and hunger to win:

As evident from the general play and the entire course of ninety minutes, the home side showed more hunger and the desire to be on the right end of the score line. After resisting an early onslaught from Liverpool, when Sturridge surely should have scored, Arsenal settled down, cut aside their mistakes and built attacks of their own. It was the impressive Mathieu Flamini whom the Gunners had missed so dearly in the middle of the park, who broke Liverpool’s attacks time and again and covered every blade on the grass throughout the match. The defence was very solid too with the likes of Mertesacker and Koscielny hardly allowing Suarez, Sturridge or Sterling any kind of space in the final third.

Liverpool failed to have a grip while Chamberlain and Fabianski shined:

The away side should have scored first in the opening minutes but Daniel Sturridge inexplicably failed to score when it looked harder to miss than score. However it was stand in goal keeper Lukasz Fabianski who put in a solid performance beneath the sticks denying Liverpool time and again with his string of saves. However the player of the match for me, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was the key difference between the two sides on the night. The youngster scored the opener and then blitzed past Agger as if the Dane wasn’t there using his devastating pace to feed Podolski for Arsenal’s second of the night.

Howad Webb incompetent and Arsene Wenger’s classy reply to Jose Mourinho:

Arsenal were lucky not to concede a penalty when Chamberlain blatantly brought down Suarez in the box, which Howard Webb inexplicably waved play on. As replays suggested it was a clear penalty, depriving Liverpool a chance to draw level. As fans round the globe and social media hurled abuses to the referee calling him incompetent, who took charge in the World Cup final, technology should perhaps come into the picture more to cut down human error.

Apart from this, the highlight of the day was Arsene Wenger’s post match press conference when he responded in a classy manner to the vibes, directed to him by Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager saying the Arsenal manager is a specialist at failures.

“Look, I don’t want to go into that silly, disrespectful remarks. I never spoke about him in my press conference, and I will not start that. The only thing I know it’s more embarrassing for Chelsea than for me.” said Wenger

Wenger style!