{"id":181686,"date":"2025-10-06T12:47:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181686\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:47:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:47:04","slug":"premier-league-talking-points-arsenals-title-push-liverpools-recent-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181686\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League talking points: Arsenal&#8217;s title push &#038; Liverpool&#8217;s recent struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal\u2019s title push built on defensive strengthpublished at 13:02 BST<\/p>\n<p>13:02 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\">Tom McCoy<br \/>BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If new leaders<br \/>\nArsenal are to land their first Premier League title since 2004 then defensive<br \/>\nsolidity could be what sets them apart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Gunners<br \/>\nhave conceded just 21 goals in 26 league games in 2025, the best record of any<br \/>\never-present top-flight club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Remarkably,<br \/>\nthey have conceded only eight times from open play in this period \u2013 at least 10<br \/>\nfewer than any other side, with Manchester City a distant second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By way of<br \/>\ncomparison, reigning champions Liverpool have shipped 22 goals from open play<br \/>\nthis calendar year, which is almost three times as many as the Gunners, and 33<br \/>\noverall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Arsenal can<br \/>\nnow boast formidable strength in depth, with summer signings Piero Hincapie and<br \/>\nCristhian Mosquera providing high-class cover for first-choice central<br \/>\ndefenders William Saliba and Gabriel. They are similarly well stocked at<br \/>\nfull-back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The<br \/>\nMerseysiders, in contrast, don\u2019t have much back-up for key duo Virgil van Dijk<br \/>\nand Ibrahima Konate, with the injured Giovanni Leoni likely to miss the rest of<br \/>\nthe season and Joe Gomez used sparingly so far in Arne Slot\u2019s reign.  <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fewest goals conceded in 2025 by Premier League ever-present clubs\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/d957d016-fbf4-462c-a140-18f22e0fa677.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"998\" height=\"754\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal\u2019s title push built on defensive strengthpublished at 13:02 BST 13:02 BST Tom McCoyBBC Sport journalist If new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-181686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}