Arsenal expert Charles Watts has questioned a Noni Madueke decision made by Mikel Arteta in the Gunners' 1-0 Premier League defeat to champions Liverpool on Sunday afternoon.
Arteta's men lost their 100% record for the 2025-26 season at Anfield, where a sensational Dominik Szoboszlai free kick in the final 10 minutes did the damage as the Reds opened up a three-point lead over last year's runners-up.
With Bukayo Saka absent due to his hamstring injury, Noni Madueke - as expected - lined up on the right-hand side of the attack and gave Milos Kerkez a rough ride, but the ex-Chelsea man was withdrawn for 15-year-old Max Dowman in the 89th minute as Arsenal unsuccessfully chased an equaliser.
Dowman was given the nod over unused substitute Ethan Nwaneri, and while Watts can understand why the latter was not given any minutes, he questioned the logic of taking Madueke off while the Gunners were going gung-ho in the dying embers.
“It certainly surprised me that he came on for Madueke," Watts told Sports Mole. "You're 1-0 down, fine, throw Dowman on, but keep Madueke on the pitch. The like-for-like substitution, I don't really see the point in that. I imagine Ethan Nwaneri wasn't too happy seeing a 15-year-old given some minutes ahead of him.
“But Arsenal are making a concerted effort this season that Ethan's going to play centrally rather than on the right. So that probably came into the equation. And Max Dowman is just here to stay.
'Did Arteta need to take Madueke off?'
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta pictured on August 23, 2025
“We've got to accept and enjoy the fact that we're going to see an awful lot of Max Dowman, and Arteta's going to trust him in big games and massive stadiums. Anfield, 1-0 down, he throws on a 15-year-old kid, that says an awful lot about how he views him for this season. He is a squad member now.
“Take the age out of the equation, he's a big, big option. But the substitutions as a whole, when he brought [Martin] Odegaard and [Eberechi] Eze, it just felt 10 minutes too late. As we got to the hour mark, for the first time in the game, it looked like Liverpool were beginning to get on top. And you just felt, ‘come on, make some changes here.’
“He waited until 70 minutes; he could have done that 10 minutes earlier to really hurt them. When he took Madueke off, do you need to do that? Just take a defender off. If you lose 2-0, fine, but you could leave Madueke on, chuck Dowman on, just try and cause more chaos around that penalty area and force the equaliser.”
Dowman was unsurprisingly unable to have a major impact on proceedings as Arsenal fell to their first Premier League loss of the season, after which Arteta was lambasted for a perceived negative approach against a Liverpool side who had hitherto looked vulnerable defensively.
The Spaniard opted to start Mikel Merino over Eberechi Eze or Nwaneri in place of Martin Odegaard - who was only a substitute due to a recent shoulder injury - and the visitors managed just one shot on target in the entire game; a Madueke volley that Alisson Becker palmed away.
However, Arsenal did register more overall shots (11 to nine), touches in the opposition box (29 to 16) and passes in the final third (64 to 54) than Liverpool, and Arteta stressed after the game that he put a team out which he thought was capable of claiming all three points.
"Don't buy into the narrative" of Arsenal's loss to Liverpool
Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai celebrates scoring on August 31, 2025
As a result, Watts has shot down the narrative that the Gunners played for a point, although he was underwhelmed by Arteta's team selection, adding: “It was really disappointing to lose so late on.
"A point would have been a great point. There was definitely frustration as well. The way the game panned out, the way Arsenal played, the way Mikel set the team up; I felt Arsenal could have done more.
“I didn't buy into the narrative that Arsenal didn't try to win. They absolutely tried to win. Mikel put out a team that he thought could win. There was no way they went there to play for a draw. It started about two or three days before and continued to be pushed.
“But the starting XI could have been different. He did take the option that I thought he probably would. I always had that nagging doubt that he would go with Merino, but I was really hoping that he was going to go down another route; that would have told us a lot about his mindset and a shift from what we've come to expect.
“But no one deserved to win that game. It just had 0-0 written all over it. But if you're going to win a game like that, it will take a moment of magic. And it was an absolute moment of magic. A one-in-a-million free kick. And when that happens, sometimes you've got to hold your hands up and say fair play. Because it was unbelievable from Szoboszlai.”
Arsenal now have a little under two weeks to prepare for the visit of Nottingham Forest after the international break on September 13, although Oleksandr Zinchenko - whosigned for the Garibaldi on loan on deadline day - will not be able to meet his parent club in that Emirates lunchtime battle.
> Click here to listen to the full reaction to Arsenal's 1-0 loss at Liverpool
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