🕟 Kick Off: 16:30 GMT

🏟️ Venue: Anfield

📺 UK Broadcaster: Sky Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: Andy Madley

📹 VAR: Stuart Attwell

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• Max Dowman (Suspension): Misses 3 games following his straight red card against Fleetwood Town.
• Bukayo Saka: Still absent following the injury he picked up against Bayern. Arteta said it is likely he will miss out on the England squad for the international break which starts w/c 9th November.
• William Saliba: Long term injury. Saliba is taking an extended break from football to heal his back without the need for surgery.
• Declan Rice, Ricciardo Calafiori, Tzolis: All trained today (30th Oct) and should be available for the game.
• Noni Madueke: Available.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟧🟩🟧🟩🟩

🚩 Liverpool Team News:

• Dominik Szoboszlai (Hamstring): Doubt (Late Fitness Test). Confirmed to have a chance of making the squad; final decision will be made over the next 48 hours following training.
• Víctor Muñoz (Knock): Doubt (Late Fitness Test). Shook off the knock picked up against Brentford and is in contention alongside Szoboszlai pending final sessions.
• Jeremie Frimpong (Muscular): Ruled Out. Sidelined with a muscle issue; expected to remain out until after the November international break.
• Hugo Ekitike (Achilles): Ruled Out. Progressing with individual rehabilitation drills, but not ready for match action.
• Conor Bradley (Knee): Ruled Out. Resumed light partial work with the squad, targeting a return in December.
• Giovanni Leoni (Knee): Ruled Out. Continuing cautious rehabilitation following his knee injury; targeting a return late this year.

⚽ Liverpool Form: 🟧🟩🟩🟩🟩

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Arsenal 0–0 Liverpool (Jan 8, 2026, Premier League)
• Liverpool 1–0 Arsenal (Aug 31, 2025, Premier League)
• Liverpool 2–2 Arsenal (May 11, 2025, Premier League)
• Arsenal 2–2 Liverpool (Oct 27, 2024, Premier League)
• Arsenal 3–1 Liverpool (Feb 4, 2024, Premier League)

📖 Match Facts:

• Arsenal haven’t won a Premier League match at Anfield since September 2012, when goals from Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla secured a 2–0 victory.
• Arsenal come into this game boasting the best defence in the league, conceding just 5 goals in 8 games; 3 of those came in one game against Brighton.
• Liverpool lost just 3 times at Anfield last season, once each to Man City*, Man United, and Nottingham Forest.
• Iraola has a record of P6 W3 L3 against Arsenal as a manager.

📸 Previously in this fixture…

Last time out against Liverpool was a pretty dire 0-0 at the Emirates in a game that produced less than 1xG combined by both teams. I really don’t remember anything at all about that game, so I’ll just get straight to the pictures.

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings
Our title defence continues as we visit the team that put on a good display on how not to defend a title last season. Whatever the form or situation Liverpool find themselves in, we can never seem to go to Anfield and get a win as I mentioned above; our last win there was 14 years ago. Arteta started that game in midfield, and he came up against 0 time Premier League winner Steven Gerrard. Anyway, times change, and so have both of the teams that played that game. Since then both teams have gone through a renaissance although Liverpool didn’t win as many trophies as they should have due to a light blue elephant in the room that people seem to have stopped talking about.

Looking ahead to this game, both sides find their squads depleted due to injury, which seems to happen pretty regularly to both of us. For us, the absence of Saka and Tzolis, now joined by the suspension of Dowman, has made put our wide attacking options down to 2, one on each side. Arteta spoke hopefully of Tzolis who is back in training, but even if he is fit, I’m not sure we should be pinning our hopes on a player that is very much still unproven in this league (although he did start very brightly).

This Liverpool side is a new look team Iraola joining as Head Coach after doing some brilliant work at Bournemouth. They find themselves trailing us by 6 points due to their 3 draws and a loss to City, but they have to be taken seriously as title contenders due to an aforementioned large mammal taking up space in every Premier League conversation. 3 points for Liverpool here would change the narrative around both teams, especially as Arsenal have looked less than convincing in many of their games so far this season (even without mentioning the Fleetwood game).

If there’s a time to break the spell and get a win at Anfield, this is a pretty good time to do it. 2nd and 3rd placed Man City* and Brighton face off tomorrow so we could find ourselves with an opportunity to really start pulling away.