Rice embraces the title race nerves

Fourteen years is a long time to carry a hoodoo. Arsenal's last league win on Merseyside against Liverpool dates back more than a decade, and that run included plenty of painful afternoons at Anfield for the Gunners. That run is over now, and Mikel Arteta's side made it count at the ground that has swallowed so many of their title bids whole.

It lands at a useful moment. Arsenal sit second in the Premier League table, 18 points from seven games played, with six wins and a single defeat so far this season. A goal difference of plus six tells you this isn't a side grinding out 1-0s by accident, and beating Liverpool at Anfield is the kind of result that tends to get remembered when the table tightens up in spring.

Rice on the pressure

Speaking to BBC Sport after the final whistle, Rice didn't dress up what a title race actually feels like from the inside. According to the broadcaster, he described himself as relishing the 'anxiety' that comes with being genuine contenders again, rather than pretending it isn't there. Arsenal have spent recent seasons being asked whether they have the mentality to go the distance, and here was their midfield anchor saying the nerves are part of the appeal now.

Rice has racked up four goals and nine assists in 3093 Premier League minutes this season. He's sitting deep, spraying passes into the half-spaces and popping up with the kind of numbers you'd expect from a more advanced midfielder.

What it means for the race

A win at Anfield doesn't hand Arsenal the title in November, and nobody at the club will pretend otherwise. But it does something harder to quantify: it removes a psychological block that's followed this group of players and this manager around for years. Arteta's Arsenal have been knocking on the door of silverware for several seasons now, and the ones who got closest always seemed to come up short exactly there, at Anfield, against Liverpool, in the moments that mattered.

This time they didn't. Second place, six wins from seven, and a dressing room that sounds, via Rice, like it's choosing to enjoy the discomfort rather than flinch from it. That's usually the bit that decides these things in May, not November.