Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool felt very much like a microcosm of Arsenal’s season so far: Some optimism, more Bukayo brilliance, a set-back, impressive resilience, more injury issues, a smattering of officiating controversy, and a result which isn’t necessarily bad but one which is tinged with disappointment because it might/should have been more positive.
It started well, with Saka and Jurrien Timber in the team, we looked decent on paper. The fact the Dutchman was deployed at left-back might say something about how Mikel Arteta feels about Jakub Kiwior and Oleksandr Zinchenko, but in isolation there was some logic in putting such a solid one-on-one defender against the quality of Mo Salah.
Ben White’s excellent long ball sent Saka free behind the Liverpool defence, he cut back inside Andy Robertson and slammed the ball beyond Caoimhin Kelleher at his near post. Just ruthless efficiency in the final third from a player who has, to my mind anyway, gone up a level this season. It’s not the exact same goal, but the quality and precision of the touches which rendered the defender useless reminded me just a bit of Dennis Bergkamp’s World Cup strike against Argentina.
The game was pretty even at that point. Liverpool got back into it from a corner. Smart movement from Luis Diaz saw him flick the ball on and Virgil van Dijk was first to it, heading home from close range to make it 1-1. I thought the way we responded was excellent though, and after that equaliser we dominated the game. 5 shots to Liverpool’s 0. Mikel Merino should have scored from a great Declan Rice free kick, and worryingly seemed to hurt his shoulder again but he carried on after some treatment.
There were nearly moments when half chances might have transpired, but there was no doubt we were on top. Late in the half, another Rice free kick saw Merino head home from close range to make it 2-1. The delivery was excellent, the header emphatic, but we had an interminable wait as VAR checked for offside. Why we’re still waiting for the implementation of semi-automated offside checks, I have no idea, but PGMOL is gonna PGMOL, I suppose. Every weekend they make themselves the star of the show, even in mundane ways like this. It’s so tiresome.
Eventually the goal stood, and going into the break I thought we were worthy of our lead, and the second half was set-up very nicely. Almost immediately on resumption though, the injury gods struck again. This time Gabriel did something to his knee under a challenge from Darwin Nunez, tried to carry on, but couldn’t. He was replaced by Jakub Kiwior, and I do think this had a big impact on the game.
It’s hard to quantify, or prove, but I think we felt his absence as a psychological blow. Kiwior did fine, but there’s a presence to the big Brazilian that was missing, and when you’re already without William Saliba, it had an impact on our mindset. Liverpool had more of the ball without being overly dangerous, and we seemed happy enough to let them have it and protect the lead. Of course losing Timber with about 20 minutes to go wasn’t ideal either, which meant we played the final part of the game with a midfielder at right-back, our regular right-back at centre-half, our third choice left centre-back alongside him, and an 18 year old who – on paper at the start of the season – would have been fifth choice at best.
Which is to take nothing away from Myles Lewis-Skelly, by the way. He came on and did well, I was impressed by his decision making, but I found some of the post-game analysis about how Arsenal weren’t really missing too many players very odd. Do they not have eyes, or sufficient knowledge about our squad? To say that back four was makeshift is an understatement and a half. The question as to why we don’t ‘go for it’ a bit more isn’t an invalid one, but when you already have the lead and you know you don’t have that incredible defensive platform that has been so important to how we play, it’s not exactly rocket science to understand why we might become a little risk averse in that scenario.
My big regret from this game though is the second equaliser, because it came when we had a good chance to make something happen up the other end. Lewis-Skelly played a good ball down the line to Martinelli, and while I accept there’s some fatigue when you get to the 81st minute, not for the first time yesterday his first touch in the final third wasn’t what it needed to be.
Arteta is so rarely publicly critical of his players, but he referenced it afterwards, saying:
The second one is the transition moment. We have to end up in the final third with a chance to take, and ten seconds later, we are 2 v 1 inside our own box at this level against this team. Obviously, you cannot give that away.
To be fair to Liverpool, they executed that transition very well. The pass from Alexander Arnold is fantastic, and we were a bit disorganised at the back which allowed someone as good as Salah to take advantage, but for me it stems from not being efficient enough when we had the chance to make something happen up the other end. Arteta put on Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri for Saka and Martinelli, and the Brazilian did have a shot which Kelleher saved.
As for the ‘goal’ we had disallowed, I just don’t think that’s any kind of foul from Kiwior. The fact the ball was put in a couple of seconds after the referee eventually blew his whistle makes it hard to analyse properly as players react to that, but that initial decision to award Liverpool a free kick was very, very generous in my opinion. There were other moments too. I’m surprised van Dijk wasn’t at least booked for his double kick out at Havertz early in the first half. If that was Granit Xhaka etc etc. There was a big penalty shout in the first half too when Konate steamed through Martinelli. My guess there is they’ll say Martinelli wasn’t fully in control of the ball, but I think Liverpool got a bit lucky there. Or, to put it another way, if that was at Anfield and the roles reversed, I think the decision would have gone their way.
Ultimately though, this was a game that we had in our hands, but once again let slip. I don’t think it’s possible to talk about why without referencing that back four, and how that might impact the team’s solidity. The central defensive partnership is basically the best in the Premier League, and we ended the game without both of them. Saka and Timber looked 75% fit, which is understandable, and it’s to their immense credit they were as good as they were on the day. And oh for Martin Odegaard’s craft on a day like that.
We were missing a lot from the start, and ended up even weaker by the end. Which isn’t an excuse, but it is a reason, and it feels like every game there’s something new to deal with from an injury perspective. After last season when we had a pretty clean bill of health for most of it, the scales have tipped too far the other way now. Please let it stop.
Arteta sounded the positives afterwards when asked if he felt like nothing was going our way, saying:
No, this is football, circumstances are going to make us better and they are making us better. So if we were able to be where we are and competing the manner that we do, I see the team I have no doubts, three days before I told you we are going to be flying on Sunday, and we started flying and were the better team by far. But we needed to grab the points today to make a reflection of where we are and where we want to be, we couldn’t do it but for sure we are there.
I know what he means. To cope with all the injuries, absences, suspensions etc, and still be there or thereabouts can be seen as encouraging, because you think what you’ll be capable of when you get the players back. But this morning, that won’t necessarily be the balm that soothes the disappointment when you get pegged back late on. And we know the margins in the Premier League are so tight. There are some difficult games coming up before the next Interlull, so we’ll have to hope the problems we sustained yesterday aren’t too serious. And with a Carabao Cup game in midweek, the manager has some very serious thinking to do about the team he puts out against Preston before a trip to Newcastle on Saturday lunchtime.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We will have an Arsecast Extra for you in a little while, of course. We’ve put out the call for questions on Threads @gunnerblog and @arseblog with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
Pod should be out around noon. For now, have a good one.
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