Trent Alexander-Arnold Arsenal mind game backfires after Liverpool suffer major title blow

The title race took its latest twist on Wednesday evening as Liverpool lost the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in a historic win for the home side. Arsenal watched gleefully from home as Jarrad Branthwaite and Dominic Calvert-Lewin both scored to keep the Reds three points behind the league-leading Gunners.

Arsenal have often been the side written off first amongst Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp’s teams, who have both won the league in recent history, of course. Perhaps a good reason, but it has seen comments made by the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold suddenly backfire in quite spectacular fashion.

Speaking to Sky Sports following Liverpool's defeat to Crystal Palace and subsequently Aston Villa's win over Arsenal, the England international claimed that their loss at Anfield had overexcited Mikel Arteta's side. A reality which now looks quite ironic.

«If those fixtures were reversed and we played second and Arsenal played first, maybe it would've been a different mentality,» he said. «It all comes down to mentality.

»I think our result played a part in Arsenal's result. They have potentially got too excited and thought 'this is our chance, this is what we need to do'."

Alexander-Arnold was substituted and the television cameras panned to the full-back gesturing frustratedly from the bench — and understandably so. To make such bold statements about your rivals only for fate to come crashing down in such a humbling fashion is not ideal.

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Arsenal have had this stigma surrounding them from early in Arteta’s tenure of being 'too emotional'.