Let’s Recognise Arsenal As a Great Team (But Liverpool Are Better)

Plus, revisiting when Gary Neville said this Man Utd midfield was better than Liverpool's

Arsenal are an excellent team. But Liverpool are an even better team.

Liverpool continue to lead the Euro Club Elo rankings by a fraction from the Gunners, and the results for English clubs this week means that, as I write ahead of the weekend, an astonishing twelve of the top 23 teams (52%) are from the Premier League. This must be some kind of record.

As things stand, of the current top 13 highest ranked teams in Europe, Liverpool’s results this season are draws away at Arsenal, Aston Villa and Newcastle, home wins against Real Madrid, Man City, Bayer Leverkusen, Aston Villa and Newcastle, and away wins against PSG and Man City, with the only defeat PSG at home.

(Newcastle in the cup final is a caveat, as Arne Slot picked his reserve keeper, as the competition is not a priority, and came on the back of extra-time against PSG. I also hadn’t included League Cup wins in my analysis this season prior to the final, as the League Cup is a very inconsistent, unreliable barometer, due to mass rotation.)

Neil Atkinson of TAW on Sky Sports correctly pushed back against this narrative of the season somehow ending in disappointment, after celebrating the re-signing of Virgil van Dijk.

Since February 19th, Liverpool have played five of these 12 games, three away. (Six if you include the League Cup final, but again, I don’t.)

So against the best 12 other teams in Europe, Liverpool’s record is won eight (66.7%), drawn three, lost one; averaging 2.0 goals scored and just 0.75 conceded. In these games, the Reds’ xG Difference is +0.75, which is higher than Arsenal’s +0.70 in their 32 league games.

It’s been a great week for English teams in Europe, and as such, it elevates the league, and as by far the best team in the league, elevates Liverpool even further.

Were Arsenal to win the three tough European games ahead (and it’s far from a given), then they will be the champions of Europe for the first time, but they will be more like the Liverpool of 2005 than the Liverpool of 2019.

In 2005, Liverpool were not as good as mega-spending Chelsea, but won the Champions League, beating Chelsea in the semis. In the same sense, Arsenal are too far behind Liverpool in the league to be considered better.

In 2019, Liverpool won the Champions League while also accruing 97 league points. The last time I checked, I couldn’t find any European champions from these shores with more than 90 points in the same league season, and the same may be true across Europe. (City won it while accruing 89 league points in 2023.)

If anything, Arsenal winning the Champions League would dilute the praise for Liverpool (as Arsenal would have the spotlight for the summer), yet it would also show that Liverpool were even better, to be so far ahead of the Gunners, with the Reds’ underlying numbers basically twice as good.

Arsenal have had their injuries, but Liverpool have too; not as many, but little gets made of Alisson Becker missing a third of the season, including a dozen really big games. Both teams have had genuine gripes with officials.

A day later, both Spurs and Manchester United (along with Chelsea in the more semi-professional European competition) made the semi-finals in Europe, albeit the Europa League is much weaker this season, due the lack of Champions League ‘fallout’ teams, and United, having thrown away a 2-0 lead at 2-2, benefitted from a completely ‘phantom foul’ second-yellow red card to an opponent that was so egregious there should be a proviso for VAR to intervene if it leads to a sending off.

Even so, this supposedly weak league of ours now has four European semi-finalists, spread across the three competitions, and only one of whom is having a good (if not remarkable) league season; while both Aston Villa (narrowly) and Liverpool (on penalties) went out to PSG, but both also beat PSG, as did Arsenal earlier in the season. Newcastle also won the League Cup, as the better team on the day and as recent Champions League participants; even if Liverpool had to focus more on what was then a tighter title race, and had also played 10 tough Champions League games in 2024/25 (whereas Newcastle struggled with just six in 2023).

The good news for Arsenal fans is the relative youth of a spine and wingers in William Saliba, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli. Obviously Myles Lewis-Skelly looks exceptional for his age, as does Ethan Nwaneri. Jurrien Timber is a good age and a good full-back. Martin Ødegaard is a quality player. They’re all 26 or younger. As a team they can improve. (I rate Kai Havertz too, even if some Arsenal fans don’t.) That said, I’ve never liked little goalkeepers, and still don’t.

If they can win the Champions League, maybe it will lift them for the coming seasons, as they age into the peak years; albeit PSG are by far the best team Liverpool have played this season, and sensationally quick.

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