Arsenal 5-6 Liverpool combined XI: Saka in over injured Salah as Jesus, Saliba pip Nunez, Konate

Arsenal and Liverpool face off in a massive match in the Premier League title race on Sunday, so here is our combined XI of the two teams.

GK: Alisson (Liverpool)
He gets in all of these combined XI. Alisson is the best goalkeeper in the Premier League.

RB: Trent Alexander Arnold (Liverpool)
A fantastic footballer who was born to play in the inverted-deep-lying-regista-single-pivot role, Alexander-Arnold’s incredible technical ability probably led you to believe that made-up gibberish is a genuine position.

Everyone knows how suspect he can be defensively and Gabriel Martinelli is bound to cause him some problems in Sunday’s clash, but nobody has been talking about that side of his game for a while now, which emphasises how important he has been going the other way.

Conor Bradley has been excellent in Trent’s absence, but having come off the bench two games in a row, we fancy the England international to return to the starting XI against their Premier League title rivals.

CB: William Saliba (Arsenal)
Saliba is one of the best young central defenders in the Premier League and usually makes these combined XIs. Picking between him and Gabriel Magalhaes was very tricky, and giving him the nod ahead of Ibrahima Konate was even tricker. His fellow Frenchman is equally as brilliant.

CB: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
Van Dijk’s form this season has caught many of us by surprise; he has been ridiculously good, defying logic having seemingly been on the decline after tearing his cruciate ligament.

The Liverpool captain is, dare I say, playing the best football of his career.

LB: Andy Robertson (Liverpool)
Oleksandr Zinchenko and Robertson are two completely different players, despite both being left-backs. The Arsenal man likes to come inside, get on the ball, pick a pass, while Robertson epitomises a Jurgen Klopp team with his marauding runs down the left flank.

Zinchenko’s form in recent weeks has improved, but he does not deserve a spot ahead of the Liverpool defender.

DM: Declan Rice (Arsenal)
Liverpool would be fancied a lot more and Arsenal would be a lot worse off had the Reds beaten the Gunners in the race to sign Rice last summer. Some Liverpool fans are still wondering why they didn’t give it a proper go having bid over £100million for Moises Caicedo.

Maybe the lack of Champions League football at Anfield would have been a deal breaker. Who knows? Not us. Liverpool didn’t even bloody try.

Anyway, Rice has been pretty good in the Arsenal midfield this season. Pretty, pretty good.

CM: Martin Odegaard (Arsenal)
The Arsenal captain walks into this team if truth be told. His form has not been as eye-opening as it was in 2023/24 but he is still better than Kai Havertz, Emile Smith Rowe, Thomas Partey, Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister.

CM: Alexis Mac Allister (Liverpool)
Odegaard is better than Mac Alliser, who is better than the other players mentioned above, which means they partner each other in midfield, in front of Rice.

The Argentine international has been playing in the No. 6 role for the Reds this season, which means he is not playing his best football. At least Wataru Endo was coming into his own…right in time to play for Japan at the Asian Cup.

RW: Bukayo Saka (Arsenal)
Mohamed Salah will not be ready to return on Sunday, so Saka it is. For what it’s worth, if Salah was fit, he would be on the right and we would make an exception to move Saka to the left. He doesn’t play there. But he has before. And he definitely could if he was asked to.

An apparent quiet season for Arsenal’s starboy has seen him score seven goals and provide eight assists in 21 Premier League appearances. The boy is special.

OPINION: Bukayo Saka and the 2020 vision that now puts Arsenal man ahead of Mo Salah

ST: Gabriel Jesus (Arsenal)
No room for Captain Chaos in this combined XI. Jesus is a fantastic all-round striker whose biggest weakness just happens to be putting the ball in the back of the net, which is something Darwin Nunez also does not excel in.

Jesus is a lot more easy on the eye and makes those around him better. Neither of those points really apply to Darwin, though you can say his work rate and unpredictability benefit his team-mates.

LW: Luis Diaz (Liverpool)
Diaz or Martinelli is one of the biggest debates in this combined XI, and the Liverpool winger has received the nod.

The Colombian only has four goals and two assists in 21 Premier League appearances this term, while Martinelli has the same record in one less match.

It could have gone either way, but we think Diaz is the better player and it is as simple as that.

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