Matt is an experienced sports journalist and Senior Editor at Football FanCast with 15 years of experience covering football across the Premier League, EFL and Scottish football. Since joining the publication in 2019, he has progressed from writer to Assistant Editor and Senior Editor, a position he has held since 2021.  

A Sports Journalism graduate, Matt previously served as Arsenal and Premier League Editor at VAVEL and gained club-media experience with Chesterfield FC. His journalism has appeared through the Press Association, with his work featured by Sky Sports and the Daily Mail.
 

Throughout his career, Matt has interviewed prominent football figures including Arsène Wenger, Ray Parlour, Alan Smith, Lucy Bronze and Steph Houghton, while also appearing on Arsenal Fan TV and Love Sport Radio.
 

Today, Matt leads Football FanCast's features team, overseeing opinion coverage, editorial standards and content strategy while continuing to provide detailed football analysis.

Arsenal have lost just two games this season. It's a remarkable record when you consider some of the discourse around the football club right now.

While no one can dispute their remarkable defence, their forward line has attracted criticism and rightfully so.

After missing out on the likes of Vinicius Junior and Julian Alvarez over the summer, they have watched both Bukayo Saka and Christos Tzolis pick up injuries, further hampering the attack.

While the Gunners should not have needed many elite players last week in the Carabao Cup, a toothless display in the final third rubber-stamped the problems they have faced.

The lessons Arsenal took from Fleetwood

Arsenal's defeat to League Two Fleetwood last week was a once-in-a-generation freak result. The Gunners simply do not lose games to lower league opposition, let alone as champions of England.

Alas, after going behind at Highbury, they knew they were up against it. They did eventually find a route back into things courtesy of Viktor Gyokeres but they were not able to find a winner.

If there is one negative you can hand to Arsenal, it would be that. They don't have an elite marksman and they lack genuine quality in wide areas with Saka on the treatment table.

So, there were plenty of lessons from last Tuesday, not least up front and in defence.

At the back, Marli Salmon's hapless defending for Fleetwood's opener suggested that the teenager isn't quite ready yet for regular first-team football.

In midfield, Martin Zubimendi looked off the pace on a rare start this season. The fact was that those on the fringes did not stake their claim enough.

Gyokeres scored but until that point both he and his partner in crime, Kai Havertz, had been anonymous. It's unlikely Mikel Arteta will select that pairing together again.

How Arsenal bounced back vs Liverpool

After that remarkable cup exit, the last ground Arsenal would have wanted to visit was Anfield. Prior to Sunday's clash, they had not visited the red side of Merseyside and won a league fixture there since 2012.

In midfield that day was Arteta; that's how long it has been.

However, they responded to their Fleetwood loss in the most perfect way possible, with a classic 1-0 win, the 33rd of the Arteta era to date.

It was vintage Arsenal. At the back, they were resolute. It was the first time in Premier League history that Liverpool had not had a shot on target at Anfield. Is there a better defence in the world? It doesn't feel like it.

In attack, the Gunners struggled again but not quite as much as they did last midweek. This time they were ruthless with the main chance they got.

The win, however, was orchestrated by a crop of returning players. This is why you invest big. Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa - who both did not start against Fleetwood - were two of the stars.

Rice ran the game from the midfield and Konsa was faultless at the back, registering a game-high 15 defensive contributions.

Arsenal star is undroppable after Liverpool

While Arsenal were not totally firing against Liverpool, this was always going to be a difficult match to bounce back in. They did so well, and it would have delighted Arteta to see Havertz back among the goals.

In recent weeks, the German has really struggled. He's arguably endured his roughest patch since the opening weeks of his Arsenal career.

Prior to scoring on Sunday, he had gone nine games without beating the goalkeeper. It prompted fears over his long-term future. It provoked supporters to cry out for a new striker to be signed in January.

It was a desperate run of form, with the nadir of that iffy spell coming against Fleetwood last week. In that game, he had as many as seven shots, only one of which was on target. How he didn't score defies belief.

The German was beginning to look like a flop again. While he has shown his importance to Arteta, notably scoring in the Champions League final last term, he is not the striker that Arsenal fans crave.

Should we be surprised? By trade, he is not a centre-forward; he is a midfielder. When they signed him from Chelsea back in 2023, the club's official channels even labelled him as such.

Consequently, has he been worth the money? Well, it's hard to suggest he has been a poor signing, but throughout that nine-game run without scoring he looked like that.

The Gunners haven't exactly signed many forwards during the Arteta era but at times, it has felt like Havertz has been cut from a similar cloth as the elusive Nicolas Pepe. In spells, he looked like a terrific player but in others he was an easy scapegoat. Arsenal's number 29 was certainly that as they left Fleetwood.

Signed for £72m, Pepe had his moments but ultimately left on a free transfer and as one of the club's biggest flops. Havertz has not been quite as bad as that but for £65m and after significantly underwhelming against a fourth-tier side, pound for pound he looked like their worst attacking signing since Unai Emery brought the Ivorian to N5.

Alas, he responded in the only way he knows how, by scoring a goal. The 27-year-old is a big game player and he proved as much on Sunday.

It was a simple finish, sure, but his overall performance was arguably his most impressive since that Champions League final in Budapest.

Havertz scored with his only shot and worked like a dog throughout, registering as many as eight defensive contributions. No forward player contributed more in the game.

So, after that nightmare at Fleetwood, he has gone from looking like another Pepe across that barren spell to undroppable again in the blink of an eye. Football is a funny old game, isn't it?