Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk framed Thursday night\u2019s trip to the Emirates Stadium as a \u201cbig fight\u201d and insisted the Reds must welcome the test if they are to take a result from Premier League leaders Arsenal. Van Dijk pointed to Arsenal\u2019s squad depth and home form as central challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will definitely look at the strength that they have. They have a fantastic squad with players on the pitch and also coming from the bench,\u201d Van Dijk said as he looked towards the meeting. \u201cWe all know at home they are unbeaten this season, I think, in all competitions. So, it is a nice challenge and we should be ready for a big fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Liverpool captain acknowledged Arsenal\u2019s physical presence and set-piece threat, and urged his team to match them closely. \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to it and I think everyone should,\u201d he added. \u201cThat is the only way to try to get a result over there. There is no reason to not look forward to it, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liverpool are one of only two sides to have beaten Arsenal this season, claiming a 1\u20130 victory at Anfield in August when Dominik Szoboszlai scored the late winner. Since that win, the Reds have endured mixed results: only three league wins from seven games since the start of December, yet they enter the Emirates unbeaten in nine matches across all competitions.<\/p>\n
A victory in north London would boost Liverpool\u2019s position inside the Premier League top four and could influence the title race. Manchester City sit second and host Brighton & Hove Albion at the Etihad Stadium 24 hours earlier, creating a sequence of high-stakes fixtures for the leading clubs.<\/p>\n
The league table included in the original report showed Arsenal top with 48 points from 20 matches, Manchester City and Aston Villa on 42, and Liverpool fourth on 34. The match therefore offers Liverpool both a chance to measure themselves against the leaders and an opportunity to alter the shape of the race at the summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Dijk says Liverpool must embrace the challenge when they visit unbeaten Arsenal on Thursday. fan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,175,172],"tags":[1305,1006],"class_list":["post-5788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-bench-selection","tag-captaincy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}