Analysis: Suarez and Sturridge vs. Koscielny and Mertesacker

Arsenal travel to Liverpool knowing a win keeps them top of the Premier League for at least another round of fixtures. They are two points clear of Chelsea and Manchester City and a win at Anfield would be a big step towards retaining the title that has evaded them since 2004.

The last time these two sides met, they were the top two teams in the league but Arsenal brushed Liverpool aside.

The Gunners have a plethora of talent and stand a chance of beating anyone in their current form, but which battles on the Anfield turf will decide the outcome of this huge game?

Per Mertesacker & Laurent Koscielny vs Luis Suarez & Daniel Sturridge

The match-up that will go a long way to deciding Saturday’s result is likely to occur when the unstoppable force of Liverpool’s strike pairing sails into a head-on collision with the immovable object that is Arsenal’s centre-backs.

Koscielny and Mertesacker have been the well-justified recipients of great praise this term, but in fact their fine work began more than 12 months ago now, with their six clean sheets (and only five goals conceded) across the final 11 games of last season doing a great deal toward helping the side secures fourth place. They are a well-suited pairing, with each having overcome difficult starts to life in England to eventually flourish both individually and collectively.

Koscielny duels in 2013/14 PL

Mertesacker’s duels in the PL 2013/14

Their direct opponents at Anfield will be as great a test as any: Sturridge and Suarez together averaging over a goal a game each in the league this term. Koscielny will likely be the more active of the defenders, his mobility making him a more direct match-up to the strikers’ searing pace, with Mertesacker tasked with cutting out their service and ensuring any long balls – the like from which Sturridge benefitted against Everton – do not prove harmful.

Steven Gerrard & Jordan Henderson vs Arsenal’s creators

With Brendan Rodgers seemingly intent of employing the attacking quartet of Sturridge, Suarez, Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho – despite it backfiring horribly against Aston Villa and, to a lesser extent, Stoke City – it seems likely that Gerrard and Henderson will again be tasked with screening duties in the heart of midfield.

Gerrard won 4/5 tackles vs Stoke City

And there is not a side in the division who will present a more daunting opposition, with Arsenal’s seemingly endless selection of silky-toed chance-makers representing by far their their most fearsome department. Whoever lines up there for the visitors – most likely Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, and one of Tomas Rosicky, Serge Gnabry or Lukas Podolski – the output is virtually guaranteed: elusive, position-switching movement and an ongoing hunt for the killer pass.

In lieu of their only natural holding player in Lucas Leiva, and with neither Gerrard or Henderson instinctively defensive midfielders, the pair will have to remain acutely focussed and disciplined in order to minimise the near-inevitable damage that Arsenal’s impish creators inflict on their hosts.

Kolo Toure Martin Skrtel vs Kolo Toure and Martin Skrtel

With Olivier Giroud a passable but hardly terrifying first-choice striker, perhaps the most significant opponent to face Liverpool’s centre-half pairing on Saturday will be themselves. Neither are fundamentally bad players – indeed both can be rather good ones – but each is liable to momentary dereliction of duty that would make fine content for a Danny Baker-presented VHS recording.

Toure, as he displayed on Saturday, is the more overt, proactive joker of the pair – the Krusty the Clown to Skrtel’s Sideshow Mel, if you will. Indeed, his act of tomfoolery which cost his side the points at West Bromwich Albion was not his first for his latest club, merely his most blatant and costly.

Toure’s pass map vs West Brom

But Sideshow Martin isn’t without his lunacy either, it simply comes is less farcical form. The willingness to neglect all duties in favour of an impromptu wrestling match is chief among them, and his acts of manhandling are ever-more likely to result in eventual punishment now that television cameramen have picked up on his unseemly habit.

Both, though, are capable of being decent – if not outstanding – defenders. Toure is proactive, a natural leader, and forward-thinking with his use of the ball. Skrtel is a far cannier centre-back than he often seems, and able to coax the ball fairly off when not insisting on an early exchange of shirts, and very rarely beaten in a one-on-one situation. That’s on a good day. Whether they can conquer their demons and demonstrate their merits on Saturday could be a defining feature of the game.