‘No bottling here’ – Danny Murphy fires back at Martin Keown over ‘ridiculous’ Arsenal vs Liverpool comparison

03/20/2025 10:03 AM

Danny Murphy was adamant in his opposition to Martin Keown's 'ridiculous' claim Liverpool 'bottled' the Carabao Cup final and Champions League.

The former Arsenal player previously argued with Simon Jordan as he believed the ex-Crystal Palace owner would critique the Gunners if they had suffered the same results as Liverpool in recent weeks.

Arne Slot's side were knocked out by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League round of 16 after losing on penalties.

Five days later, on Sunday, Newcastle – thanks to goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak – beat Liverpool to lift their first trophy in 73 years.

Speaking to Jordan, Keown said: "If this was Arsenal, losing two major games, you'd say they bottled it.

"They've just gone out of the Champions League and lost a cup final."

In defence of his former club, Murphy said: "It's a ridiculous comparison, I don't even know where Martin was going with it. How can you compare? 

"Liverpool have been in the league cup final three out of the last four years. Won it last year.

"There's no bottling going on to lose a cup final or a cup competition. Even in the Champions League, they drew over 180 minutes and lost on penalties."

White asked if the shine had been taken off Liverpool's season due to recent results and Murphy said: "I think there's disappointment because at one stage they were invincible and going to win the lot. 

"So yeah, but in reality, I think 99 per cent of Liverpool fans at the start of the season, if you said, you're going to win the league, they'd have bitten your hand off and forgotten all the other cups."       

Manchester City and Arsenal were expected to go head-to-head for the 2024/25 season but both have endured lacklustre seasons.

Despite losing long-time manager Jurgen Klopp prior to this season, Liverpool now lead the Premier League by 12 points.

Mohamed Salah, in the last year of his contract, has been a significant factor for recent success.

He currently has 32 goals and 22 assists in all competitions this season and is the Ballon d'Or favourite.

Slot has proved his tactical acumen across the season, improving the Reds’ defence.

As well as this, in a 2-0 victory against Man City he played Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai as makeshift strikers, showcasing his adaptability.

However, in recent weeks, after an impressive start to the campaign, Liverpool have slowed in their pressing.

“Liverpool’s legs have run out of steam. Set-piece wise, duels in the middle of the park and for pace, Liverpool couldn’t cope,” said Reds legend Jamie Carragher after their Carabao Cup defeat.

Asked whether his players were too mentally or physically tired after the PSG loss, Slot said: “Mentally, it's always difficult to judge.

“Were we on Tuesday mentally or physically tired? No. But this game had nothing to do with running, this game had only to do with playing duels and there was no intensity in terms of running in this game at all. So you cannot even judge it if we were tired yes or no, physically, because we could not press them.

“You can judge a team if they are tired and they press. But there was nothing to press because they played over our press. If they got a goal-kick or if they got a free-kick – which they had quite a lot of in the first half – they every time brought it into our last line, which led to a lot of set-pieces.

“So, the game was slow and not intense, so it's difficult to judge for me if we were physically ready.

“Mentally, that's always a difficult one.

“If you look at the result and the performance you might feel it maybe did something to us, but I prefer to look at how the game went.

“And this game went exactly the way they wanted it to be: a fight with a lot of duels and a lot of duels through the air.

“And if we play 10 times a game of football through the air against them, they win it probably nine times because they are a stronger team through the air than us, which led to the first goal and the second goal because the second goal was also a header that they won at the second post that fell for Isak and led to the 2-0.”