It is safe to say that having played a big chunk of his career at Everton, Mikel Arteta is not exactly the most popular opposition manager who will come to Anfield this season.

The Spaniard was famously ridiculed by Liverpool supporters after their team beat Arsenal to the Premier League title in 2025, and though he has since answered back to the ‘always the bridesmaid’ jibe by winning the title with the Gunners, Reds fans remain unimpressed by him both as a manager and as a personality.

But despite their failure to win at the home of the Reds in the Premier League since 2012, Arteta has now confidently claimed that his side will beat Liverpool this weekend. In doing so, he should have made Andoni Iraola‘s team talk much, much easier. The Reds should need no more motivation to make sure the Arsenal boss is left eating his words at full-time.

Arteta ‘convinced’ that Arsenal will beat Liverpool

It is fair enough for any manager to have confidence that his team can win on any given day. You’ve got to back yourself, and when you are the Premier League champions, why wouldn’t you?

There is a line to be trodden when speaking publicly about such matters, though, and when conducting an interview with Sky Sports before the Liverpool match, Arteta fell foul of that.

“I’m fully convinced that we’re going to go there on Sunday and win the game,” said the Basque.

Reminded that Arsenal’s record away at Liverpool was about as bad as it gets, Arteta remained in bullish mode, claiming that he and his team have turned around similarly poor records at stadiums all over the country since his appointment in 2019.

Confidence is one thing, but Arteta appears to have decided already that Arsenal have won this match. One look at this interview and it is easy to imagine the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Alexis Mac Allister and Alexander Isak bristling more than a little.

Having been beaten so many times by the Reds as both a player and a manager, you would think Arteta would approach this game with a touch more humility. That he hasn’t should work in Liverpool’s favour. Iraola can capitalise on it to make sure his team go out to prove Arteta wrong and put themselves firmly in the title race.

In fairness to the Arsenal manager he did have some words of praise for Liverpool as well, declaring that: “They have the ingredients to be up there challenging for any trophy that they participate in. Look at the quality of the squad, the manager, the history that they have. There is no question for me about that.”

Liverpool fans will be up for this under the lights at Anfield, and after hearing Arteta’s confidence and his desperation to finally get a result at L4, the players absolutely will be as well.