View From The Armchair is a regular column by a loyal Gooner who attended Arsenal games in the 1980s and 1990s

Read on for his measured take after Arsenal's 4-0 defeat at the hands of Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday. 

My stream went down at the start of the game, so I picked myself up off the couch, and headed out into the wilderness to head towards a pub to catch the game.

I only got about half a mile down the road before I did a U turn having walked past two battle cruisers that were showing nothing but the rugby, before I decided I didn’t want to catch Covid, and didn’t fancy watching it in the pub, so I headed home to listen to it on the radio.

Just in time for the commentators to get all excited as Klopp and Arteta nearly came to blows on the touch line.

With the score still at 0-0 everything was all there still to play for. Followed soon after just as my stream returned by the opener for Mane’s a ball slung over from a free kick, which if I were the pedantic type, might argue and say both Gabriel and Ramsdale might have dealt with better - but I’m, not so I wont.

Going in one nil down at Anfield is never a disaster, but the back pass into the feet of an impish Jota at the start of the second half most certainly was from Tavares.

We need to learn to avoid capitualtions

But the inevitable slide into capitulation to have us leaving Anfield at the wrong end of a 4-0 drubbing most certainly does not bode well for the future, because, clearly this team needs to learn how to not capitulate.

Every goal conceded moving forwards needs to carefully analysed and worked on how to avoid. These are the games where you need to lay down a psychological marker, if not for this season certainly the next.

Maybe that is what Arteta was thinking when he chose to confront Klopp on the touch line when the score was nil nil.

However, it backfired on this occasion, by all accounts and according to the expert opinion opined by one Jamie Carragher, it was this flashpoint 10 minutes from the end of the first half, that turned the game in Liverpool’s favour.

A further two goals added with relative ease only served to highlight the gap between ourselves and Liverpool.

But let’s look at this score line sensibly.

Liverpool, league champions one season removed, are on the march towards another title, having had a year off last year, as does tend to happen to champions for some kind of strange reason.

They also had the added benefit of having a raucous Anfield crowd firmly behind their team, who no doubt believe they will be adding not only another title in the silverware cupboard, but also very valid dreams and hopes of adding another European cup to sit alongside it come the end of the season in May.

Only a mug punter would deny that they have a very realistic hope of achieving exactly that.

Let's aim to bounce back against Newcastle

So we will take our licks, learn our lessons and keep on moving forwards, the decent run we have been on is over, and all that matters now is how we get up off the canvas and bounce back from this defeat.

This is no time to be calling for heads to roll, no time for you the travelling supporter to be calling for changes at boardroom level, or any other type of reactive hysteria.

Yes it was a disappointing result, and yes we did lack some cut and thrust up front. But 4-0 is a very generous result for Liverpool in my humble opinion. 2-0 would have been a fairer reflection, but it gives us stuff to work on this week ahead of Newcastle.

Not conceding those two late goals would edge us ever so closer to their coat tails next season in the titanic battles we need to be edging towards with our old foe up the M1/M6 in years to come.

But for now we just have to dust ourselves off and get on with it, and I for one am looking  forward to seeing how we bounce back.

The true mark of a decent team is being able to overcome these mental hurdles and bounce back straight away, and I’m sure that this is the tune that Arteta will be relaying to this young team moving forwards.

Onwards, upwards, COYG. Peace x

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