Arteta eyes George Graham inspiration to end Anfield hoodoo
Mikel Arteta once described the helplessness of losing at Anfield using a Spanish word, bajar, recalling his playing days with Everton. “It’s when a cyclist is going up and looks amazing, then in one kilometre he goes ‘boom’ and he’s struggling again,” he said in Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary. “The game was going well and then suddenly I could only see red shirts flying around. The game is passing all over me and I cannot react. I only had that feeling in my career once, and it was at Anfield.”
That history looms large again as Arsenal travel to face Liverpool on Sunday, five days after being dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Fleetwood in a result Arteta will consider the most embarrassing of his managerial career, according to the Guardian. Arsenal have not won a league match at Anfield since March 2013, a run of 13 games that equals the club’s worst ever sequence at the ground. Their only win there since has come via penalties in the League Cup in 2020.
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Arteta did taste a competitive win at Anfield as a player in September 2012, but the night ended in hospital after a concussion suffered in a collision with Jordan Henderson, an incident he has called “the biggest fear of my life”. As a manager, he has tried differently themed approaches, even playing You’ll Never Walk Alone over the Arsenal training ground speakers ahead of a 2021 visit that ended in a 4-0 defeat.
Graham's template from 1989
The Guardian draws a parallel with George Graham, who led Arsenal to Anfield in May 1989 needing a 2-0 win to clinch the title in the most dramatic title decider in English football history, settled by Michael Thomas’s stoppage time goal. “I told my players to keep things tight in the first half, it was imperative we did not concede,” Graham said in an interview marking the 20th anniversary of that night. “The papers were saying we’d have to attack from the off, but I was adamant that was wrong. If Liverpool had scored an early goal it would have been over. But they did very little attacking and played into our hands.”
Both men won their first league titles at 44, and both have built reputations on defensive solidity. Graham’s Arsenal became known for “1-0 to the Arsenal”, while Arteta has recorded 32 Premier League wins by that scoreline since taking charge in December 2019, more than any club bar Everton.
Selection concerns before Anfield
Arsenal go into Sunday’s match with injury concerns. Bukayo Saka is out with a thigh injury, Noni Madueke is a doubt over his ankle, and teenager Max Dowman will miss three matches after Arsenal’s appeal against his red card was rejected.
Arsenal scored their first set piece goal of the season in a 2-0 win over Everton last weekend, and targeting Liverpool’s defensive frailties from dead balls while remaining compact elsewhere could offer the clearest route to finally ending the long wait for a league win at Anfield.
