Hopefully the Liverpool captain is prescient and Thursday is more nice than horrifying for the Reds.
At the start of the 2025-26 season, most people were looking ahead to an early January mid-week clash between Liverpool and Arsenal and seeing a potential title decider. While the season since has mostly gone as London’s Gunners expected and hoped, it hasn’t quite gone to plan for Liverpool.
Arsenal sit first after 20 matchweeks, a full six points clear of second-place Manchester United. Liverpool, on the other hand, find themselves in fourth—a full 14 points back of the leaders. Instead of a clash of favourites, there is clearly only one heading into Thursday’s match, and that favourite is Arsenal.
“We all know at home they are unbeaten this season,” Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk said ahead of the match. “So it’s a nice challenge and we should be ready for a fight. I’m looking forward to it and everyone should. That is the only way to try to get a result. There is no reason to not look forward to it.”
The reason to not look forward to it perhaps would be Liverpool’s relative struggles this season, and that even when the results haven’t been terrible—and the results have in fact been thoroughly decent over the past month or so—the actual performances have largely fallen short of expectations.
Add in a growing injury list and key absences, and many on the outside will be expecting a comfortable Arsenal win at the end of Thursday’s match. Perhaps, though, now freed of the pressure that came of starting the season title favourites, the challenge of Arsenal will be what this Liverpool side needs.
“Every game is difficult,” Van Dijk added. “We obviously have to see the positives and take that into the next challenge. That’s how it is. We keep fighting, keep going, and on to Arsenal.”
Category: General Sports
