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🚨 Jamie Redknapp delivers a brutal assessment of Liverpool’s 1–0 defeat to Arsenal at Anfield: “I think Liverpool supporters should be absolutely furious with that performance. And I’m saying that as someone who played for this football club. You can lose to Arsenal. They’re a very good side. Nobody is suggesting you have some divine right to beat them because you’re playing at Anfield. But you cannot play 90 minutes at home, fail to register a single shot on target and then expect people to sit here discussing how unfortunate you were. Unfortunate about what? What exactly did Arsenal’s goalkeeper have to do today? And that’s the question I’d be asking every Liverpool attacking player in that dressing room. Because for years, whenever Arsenal came to Anfield, everybody knew the conversation beforehand. Could they handle the atmosphere? Could they cope with the pressure? Would they start making mistakes once Liverpool got going? Well, Arsenal have just come here and made Liverpool look like the away team. That’s what happened. And I don’t want to hear people blaming the referee, the fixture schedule or anything else. Arsenal didn’t stop Liverpool from playing football by hiding the ball somewhere. They stopped them because they were better organised, more disciplined and looked like they understood the game far better. Every time Liverpool tried to build something, there was an Arsenal player waiting. And when Liverpool couldn’t find a way through, they kept trying the same things. At some point, somebody has to take responsibility. I watched the Arsenal players after Kai Havertz scored. Nobody looked particularly frightened of what was coming. That’s what surprised me. Usually at Anfield, the opposition scores and you can almost see them thinking about how long they’ve got left to survive. Arsenal scored and carried on as though they were perfectly entitled to be winning. And Liverpool never really challenged that belief. That’s an enormous compliment to Arteta and an embarrassing reflection on Liverpool. You know what makes it worse? For the last fourteen years, Arsenal supporters have had to listen to people reminding them that they couldn’t win at Anfield. Fourteen years. And when they finally do it, Liverpool don’t even manage to make their goalkeeper produce a meaningful save. Imagine being an Arsenal supporter who has waited all that time, worrying about this fixture every season, only to discover that the most comfortable part of the afternoon was watching Liverpool try to equalise. I’d be delighted if I supported Arsenal. And I’d be asking serious questions if I supported Liverpool. Because this wasn’t one of those matches where you come away thinking, ‘We played brilliantly, but their goalkeeper had the game of his life.’ No. Arsenal came here with a plan, executed it and left with three points. Liverpool had ninety minutes to come up with an answer. They couldn’t. And the worst thing I can say about today’s performance is that, with ten minutes remaining, I was still waiting for Liverpool to start playing like a team that actually believed it could win. Arsenal weren’t waiting for anything. They’d already done their job. If I’m a Liverpool player tonight, I wouldn’t even want to look at the league table. Because Arsenal have come to your home, beaten you, gone top of the league and left you with absolutely nothing to complain about except your own performance. That’s a difficult one to swallow.”

🚨 Mikel Arteta on his conversation with Max Dowman after his red card against Fleetwood Town: “When Max was coming off, I could see he was upset. He had his head down, and I stopped him before he went into the tunnel. I asked him, ‘Max, what did we speak about before the game?’ He didn’t answer. I said, ‘Look at me. What did we speak about?’ He said, ‘Not reacting to the tackles.’ I told him, ‘Exactly. And what have you just done?’ He was trying to explain what happened, that the player had caught him and he was frustrated. I told him I didn’t want to hear it at that moment. He had to go inside, calm himself down and think about what had happened. I know people saw that conversation and thought I was being too hard on him. But I couldn’t stand there and tell him everything was okay when he’d just made a mistake that could cost his teammates the match. After the game, I went looking for him. He was sitting in the dressing room, still in his kit. Most of the boys were getting changed, but Max was sitting quietly, looking at the floor. I sat beside him and asked, ‘Have you spoken to your parents?’ He shook his head. I said, ‘Why not?’ He told me, ‘I don’t know what to say to them.’ That was the moment I realised how much it was affecting him. I told him, ‘Max, you’re 16. You’re allowed to make mistakes. You’re not allowed to pretend they didn’t happen, but you’re allowed to make them.’ He started apologising again. I said, ‘Stop apologising to me for a moment. Tell me what you learned.’ He said, ‘That I can’t react like that.’ I asked him, ‘And if somebody makes the same tackle on you next week?’ He said, ‘I get up and keep playing.’ I told him, ‘Good. That’s all I wanted to hear.’ Then I asked him something else. ‘Max, do you know why I was so angry with you?’ He said, ‘Because I got sent off.’ I told him, ‘No. Because I know how good you can become, and I don’t want you giving people reasons to take football away from you. You’re going to meet defenders who are stronger than you, older than you, and some who will spend 90 minutes trying to upset you. If they discover that all they need to do is make you angry, they will do it every single week.’ He was listening properly now. I told him, ‘You cannot control what another player does to you. But you can control what you do next. That’s what separates very good players from the ones who stay at the top.’ Before I left, he asked me, ‘Are you still angry with me?’ I said, ‘A little bit.’ He finally smiled. Then I put my arm around him and told him, ‘But I’m still your manager tomorrow, Max. And you’re still my player. One red card doesn’t change that.’ He asked whether he’d be playing again. I said, ‘Of course. Once you’re available. What did you think, I was going to send you back to school?’ He laughed. And I told him, ‘Now call your parents. They’ll be more worried about you than the red card.’ That’s the part people don’t always see. Sometimes you have to be firm with these boys because the world is not going to be gentle with them. But you also have to remember they’re still boys. Max made a mistake. He knows that. My responsibility isn’t just to make sure he never does it again. It’s to make sure he doesn’t spend the next few days believing that one bad moment has changed what I think of him. Because it hasn’t.”