There’s plenty to talk about from the Premier league game between Liverpool and Arsenal yesterday at the iconic Anfield stadium. Arne Slot’s men, who are aiming to defend and claim the league title for the 2nd time in a row, defeated Mikel Arteta’s side 1-0 in a blockbuster fixture. One of the talking points of this game were the duels between Noni Madueke and Milos Kerkez but who won the battle and how have the fans reacted?
The duels between the two players have been doing the rounds on social media with opinions divided between Liverpool and Arsenal fans. Both Milos Kerkez and Noni Madueke are new recruits to their respective clubs and the battle between the two were fiery and extremely exciting to see.
Madueke, who arrived from Chelsea for a sum of 52 million euros, started in the right wing where he was bound to have direct one-on-ones with Milos Kerkez. The battle between the two players was worth watching. This rivalry, in fact, started from the time when they were playing for their previous clubs.
In the 17th minute of the match, Noni Madueke made his first run-in at Milos Kerkez, who was able to intercept the former’s cross attempt successfully. 3 minutes later, Madueke dragged Kerkez halfway from the pitch to the Liverpool box but the Hungarian was able to stop the Englishman this time as well.
Then in the 34th minute, David Raya sent a long ball to Madueke, who controlled and cut back for a shot but Milos Kerkez intercepted again. There were a few more moments from the game when Kerkez denied the Arsenal attackers from having a sniff at the Reds’ goal.
Dominik Szoboszlai’s successful free kick effort from outside of the box in 83rd minute sealed all 3 points for Liverpool and has put the club in a very good position in the early days of the season. A hat-trick of wins in the opening weeks of the league is really a strong start by the reigning champions and it is nothing less than a statement to all the other clubs.
A highly entertaining battle but fans believe Kerkez won the contest
There was plenty of back and forth between Milos Kerkez and Noni Madueke. The Arsenal forward kept charging into the new Liverpool left-back who joined the club from Bournemouth on a 40 million Euros deal 2 months ago. Madueke had some really bright moments during transitions as fans praised him for his directness.
However, Madueke was not able to find the back of the net, which means Milos Kerkez did his job very well. The English forward was able to win only 3 of his 8 duels and had a passing accuracy of 56%, meaning only 9 out of his 16 passes went successful.
Milos Kerkez, on the other hand, looked switched on every time Arsenal came forward for an attack. The Hungary international had an impressive 4.3 rating with 2 successful tackles out of 3 and 2 blocked crosses. Even though Madueke was aggressive in his intent, Kerkez was able to ultimately stop him from scoring and that’s what the fans pointed out.
“Arsenal fans are so easily impressed. They were gassed that Madueke would tear Kerkez apart. You already knew Noni can run but I saw nothing else from him”, one fan wrote. “If anyone truly believe that Madueke ‘cooked’ Kerkez then I’m sorry, you don’t understand football”. – wrote another fan.
“If anything Kerkez was one of our best performers yesterday, Madueke never got a dangerous cross in all day”. “Solid performance from him against Madueke – that boy was on the pocket of Kerkez.” – Liverpool fans claimed.
Among all, there was one Arsenal supporter who wrote, “Kerkez was on his knees all game begging Madueke not to destroy him”. “Madueke has tried to dribble past Kerkez 7x in his career. Madueke has successfully dribbled past Kerkez 0x in his career.” – a Liverpool fan shared this stat. “An absolutely unbelievable performance from Milos Kerkez today.” – another user wrote.
