Arsenal take on history and Liverpool voodoo with elusive title in sight

Every contender to have conquered Anfield between February and May has gone on to win the league. Are the Gunners next?

ANFIELD STRUGGLES: Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. Pic: Adam Davy/PA Wire

These days, for reasons of practicality as much as anything else, you very rarely see a team deciding to switch ends after the pre-match coin toss. But in 2018, in a Champions League quarter-final against Liverpool at Anfield, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City did. In one of English football’s first recorded instances of a Pep overthink, City decided to switch ends to prevent Liverpool from being able to attack their favoured Kop end during the second half. Genius. Instead, Liverpool banged in three goals in the first 30 minutes, and went on to win 5-1 on aggregate.

Sitting on the City bench that night was assistant coach, Mikel Arteta, who had already endured his own harrowing Anfield experience a few years earlier. In 2014, Arsenal were still chasing that elusive league title when they visited Anfield for a Saturday 12.45pm kick-off. By 1.05pm they were 4-0 down, their gameplan in ruins, a sensory overload of red shirts and white noise having temporarily interrupted the function of their limbs. Arteta was Arsenal’s captain that day and would testify after the 5-1 defeat that he had never seen Arsene Wenger so angry.