That was about as much fun as the weather last night.

Arsenal had an opportunity to really lay down a marker against an injury-hit, beleaguered, and not really in form (despite what the ‘unbeaten run will tell you) Liverpool team.

And they just didn’t take it. The opportunity was there, and no such marker was laid down.

Arteta named an unchanged side, and I don’t think there were any surprises, but for Liverpool, there were, as Ekitike didn’t even make the bench. And so there was optimism. We were playing well in the run-up to this; we had a strong bench, we’d just seen Man City draw yesterday, so the opportunity was right in front of us.

And in that first half, after the first five minutes of Liverpool knocking the ball around, we started to get hold of it. We created some half-chances, Saka looked as though he had the beating of Kerkez, Liverpool didn’t really look like they were going to create anything.

Then, in one moment, with a couple of Arsenal players out of position and miscommunication between Saliba and Raya, Liverpool hit the bar out of nothing.

But it’s ok – we survive – the second half plays out, the talk in the concourse was about building on that for the second half, no harm no foul.

Boy, were we all wrong.

I actually don’t really know what to say about that second half, but I’ll bet Arteta did in the dressing room, because what we saw from minute 45 onwards was not great from those Arsenal players.

Now, if I’m going to sprinkle in a wee dram of positivity, it would be that ultimately, the tone of this blog sounds like we’ve lost, when in fact we have still kept ‘par’ with City’s result, and we’ve knocked off another really tough game off the list. So ultimately, there’s no major damage, other than to the egos of some of those Arsenal players. Because in that second half, they got a schooling from what was a good – but not great – Liverpool team.

On 60 minutes, I turned to Nick, who stands next to me in block five, and said “I don’t think we’ve been in their box yet”. There was just zero threat from Arsenal whatsoever in that second half. I’ve just looked at the stats – that second half doesn’t make for great reading:

  • Zero big chances created
  • 65% possession to Liverpool
  • Out-passed – 308 to our 166
  • Out-xG’d

Now, what I would say is that the fact we were ‘out-xG’d probably had a lot to do with the game set up, in which Arteta reflected afterwards, as Liverpool set up to flood the midfield and not give us a sniff. But basically, we were second best to everything in the second half, and in the cold light of day, I’m still really frustrated with the performance. We were at home. We should have imposed ourselves on the game more in that second half, and we got absolutely nothing from it – performance-wise, I mean. We offered little threat going forward but for me the most worrying thing was how bad we were both on and off the ball. Liverpool players were able to dance around us. Meanwhile we couldn’t – it felt like – string more than three passes together. Every Arsenal players were guilty of it and honestly, we were so bad, it’s probably a testament to how good we are that we’ve even got a point out of that game. Because the performance in that second half was one of a team that probably should have been on the end of a defeat.

From an individual perspective, we lost Hincapie early in that second half and whilst he wasn’t having a blinder of a game, you can see why he is favoured above Myles right now. Because when MLS came on, Liverpool targeted him and I got nervous every time they got the ball to Frimpong. He looked off it and some of that might be down to the fact he just hasn’t played many games and we’re still playing one of the best teams in the country, but if that is the case it ain’t getting resolved any time soon, because Arteta and Arsenal can’t afford to play players back into form. The squad is too deep.

The other player I think we need to point out is, unfortunately, our big Swede up top. He’s now played 19 games in the Premier League, nearly 1,300 minutes, so I think we have a big enough sample size. And I’m starting to feel like this is just what we have – a striker from Coventry. We all know (and knew) he wasn’t going to do the level of output from his time in Portugal, but his movement isn’t great, he doesn’t affect games enough and last night I saw a guy basically just standing around for big chunks of the match. There was one passage in the first half where he broke out from between Konate and Van Dijk’s grip to receive the ball from Gabriel to feet. He one-touched it straight to Big Gabi, then tucked in between the two centre-halves. Then, two minutes later, he did the same again. Look, it’s a nothing moment, but the problem is we’ve got a guy who isn’t getting into those poaching spaces in the box. He’s not making the runs in behind the defenders enough and whilst I’m not in the Lacazette zone I got to for the last year of his time at the club, I am starting to get worried that this is all we will ever get from Gyokeres. We’re challenging for a title and we really can’t afford to have players putting in anonymous performances on too many occasions. Something has to change. You could say similar to Eze yesterday, but I’m prepared to just let that slide; he came on for about 12 minutes plus injury time in a game in which Liverpool flooded a midfield and came for a point, so perhaps it was a mini ‘Hail Mary’ from Arteta to see if he could larup one in from 25 yards, so that you’d be hard pressed to get in to for too much detail. But Big Vik needs to start showing us more guys.

ON the Liverpool thing, I do think it’s interesting that Liverpool were lauded for their second-half display when, as Slot pointed out afterwards, they didn’t have a shot on target in the second half and spent a big chunk of the game slowing everything down that they could. They came for a point and they got it. Fair pay to them. And I think you do need to mention that time wasting and game management to talk about the context for which Martinelli is now the world’s most evil person apparently, for pushing Conor Bradley off the pitch. Gary Neville went in on him, the media has gone in on him, rival fans have gone in on him, but as I said on social media last night – let’s all put our fainting couches away now, shall we? He was silly, it was stupid to try to push an injured player off the pitch, but he did make a motion to move back on to the pitch and I think you can see that’s what Martinelli was gesturing about. Let’s not forget we’d seen Frimpong go down in the first half to try to claim a penalty and not get up, yet as soon as the play was stopped, he was up and waiting to get back on. There was gamesmanship going on from Liverpool (goal kicks, etc) and Martinelli picked the wrong moment to take issue. It wasn’t right, but let’s not pretend he’s tried to injure a player on purpose, should we?

So the evening ended in less than fun fashion, I was absolutely sodden, we didn’t get that win and revenge we all crave, but ey, we’re top of the league. We’re six points clear. No big psychological damage has been done from yesterday, but I think most Arsenal people today will be have a feeling of ‘what if’ had we been more like the Arsenal we’ve seen for most of this season in the second half. 

It’s a mini break from the Premier League for a week now, as we go into both FA Cup action against Portsmouth on Sunday at 2pm, followed by Chelsea on Wednesday at 8pm in the League Cup. It’ll be a chance to rotate a few players around and what I’ll be looking for over the next five days is that Arteta gets some rest in to a few legs now, because we have to get back to winning ways away to Forest in just over a week’s time. We can’t let last night’s draw become a ‘thing’.

Catch you all tomorrow.