Digging Deeper Into Liverpool’s 0-0 Victory Over League Champions-Elect Arsenal

Sometimes you draw a match and it feels like a loss. Liverpool fans who can remember as far back as four days ago know that feeling: letting a lead slip away in the truly dying minutes at home in the very situation one of your midfielders was shouting at his side to correct in the minutes before conceding sure was deflating. Even in the brief period where the Reds were winning against Fulham (if you had time to even blink), it didn’t feel like fun: a truly joyless affair yet again against a team the Reds should beat. Hard to take. The kind of game where years later you might be surprised to recall it was just a draw rather than a loss.

This was different, and not just because it was a point away against the league leaders. It’s the manner, not just the result. It’s up to the Reds in coming weeks and months to make both those halves mean something, but it’s a game that has a lot of raw materials to build on. The defensive organization and intelligence on the ball in the first half against a team as organized as Arsenal was something to behold, and whatever alchemy was done to make the second half happen should be bottled and quaffed before every match ideally.

That was Liverpool’s last trip to London this season.* The Reds have the Barnsley in the FA Cup up next (perhaps why Arne Slot could go with only an injury-forced substitution across all 90 minutes), and then it’s up to them to make this performance mean something in the Champions League and domestically. This is only draw that feels like it’s a win if Liverpool make it the start of something rather than merely a blip amidst the chaos.

Winners and Losers

The most obvious winner for Liverpool is Dominik Szoboszlai, who completed 94% of his passes on the night and was instrumental in everything good the Reds managed. While you can argue that a lot of his distribution was “safe” when looking at a pass map, it’s important to remember that a good number of those “simple” passes came under enormous pressure, and served to both retain possession and put Arsenal under threat: if he was being pressed by two or three, providing a good ball to a teammate in space was a major part of Liverpool making something of their time on the ball (credit, too, to Ryan Gravenberch on this one).

While the end product was lacking, Jeremie Frimpong proved a real problem to the Arsenal defense. I kept thinking he had no chance to reach a ball only to learn over again just how truly rapid he is — and his intelligence when it came to holding the ball up and making choices in close possession was clear. While his crosses, like those from Miloš Kerkez, did let the team down somewhat, it should be stated that it’s probably quite challenging to put in good crosses when you’re coming back into a team who’s playing without a striker. Finally, while he’s always very good, Alisson again showed why he has his reputation. Absolutely no bother.

The entire Arsenal team the obvious losers: if you’re after winning a league you absolutely have to win at home, and you well and truly should do so if you’re playing a Liverpool side that is both dealing with such injuries and is so deeply out of their fearsome form. Instead, Arsenal failed to take advantage of the Reds, and though they perhaps could have put a back-post header on target with the last kick of the game it’s also telling that the most threatening set play was arguably a corner where the game’s first yellow card was brandished to stop a Liverpool counter attack. In the second half someone who didn’t know any better would probably assign the teams incorrectly if they were trying to pick out which side were the runaway league leaders playing at home and which side were the struggling, injury-laden ones who were looking for their first win against top 10 opposition** since November. This context, more than anything else, is why I landed on my title.

Gabriel Martinelliobviously another loser. I do hope he’s ashamed of his behavior now that the heat of the moment has passed, but it’s worth thinking about why he acted that way: I would argue that he’s perhaps unable to understand that other professionals might not cynically fake injuries for a narrow advantage.

Dissecting the Narrative

Before the match you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who felt Liverpool could get a positive (or neutral, if you’re being a stickler) result away at Arsenal today, particularly with no available goal threat. Hugo Ekitiké‘s confirmed absence felt like a quiet groan amidst a sea of pessimism, and I admit that I was one of the pessimistic voices. No one was mad at their respective panels on television when everyone predicted a firm and relatively easy Arsenal win. I admit that my major hope was that the Reds would walk out with their heads held high.

Arsenal have been flying at the top of the table, and they were playing at home. They’re so good at set plays. Liverpool are so bad at them that their makeshift set play coach was recently fired. You could imagine how Arsenal would score, even without any specific Liverpool mistakes.

In the end, the Reds managed a very well-organized defensive showing in the first half, a first half where the only story was perhaps how lucky Arsenal were that Conor Bradley was an inch too high in his attempt to take advantage of a defensive mistake by Arsenal — a mistake itself forged by Liverpool’s smooth, dangerous passing in attack (!).

And then the second half happened, and Liverpool looked the likeliest to score until we hit stoppage time. It was some performance by the visitors, and while Arsenal’s pressure in those final minutes did make me think of the ill-fated ones last time out against Fulham, it was still a struggle not to be impressed. While I would have bitten your arm off for a clean sheet before the match kicked off, I felt Arsenal were a bit lucky to walk away with one when the dust settled.

The narrative has been that Liverpool are in crisis, and that the Reds are struggling, and that struggle comes in large part due to their own choices around who was purchased and when. That narrative is still true.

But another narrative is also true, if much quieter: this Liverpool team have a lot of talent, and a lot of pride. The parts are there to be a force to be reckoned with. The challenge is to make that force more visible than the discord.

How The Fans Reacted

Many of us had some comments about Gabriel Martinelli’s choices, and I’ll spare you chat of them here — I’ve certainly had enough to say about them elsewhere (and have on good authority that most sensible Arsenal supporters are also shaking their heads on it).

Andrew Beasley (@basstunedtored) will have to forgive me for including his typo here (“Reds” not “Feds”), but I think he’s captured what many of us are feeling at the moment:

That was a battle, and while Liverpool didn’t win it, some draws feel more like wins than others.

Dan Kennett (@dan.kennett.co.uk) sees this one as a marker down for an end of the struggle:

Finally, the televisions pointed out to us all that starting Arsenal striker Viktor Gyökeres (he did start, I promise; he played 64 whole minutes even if you never actually noticed him) put in a total of eight touches over his time on the pitch, only narrowly more than Liverpool’s strikers (who collectively played 0 minutes). Neil Atkinson (@knoxharrington) had some astute commentary for us despite being away on holiday for this one:

What Happens Next

The thing is, Liverpool is always capable of a big performance against a big side — even if the Reds are missing key players. Arne Slot’s side has played poorly this season, but it’s been rare that poor performances have come against opposition that garners serious respect.

I’ve been in the minority saying that Liverpool have played better than we think while suffering from either poor moments/periods and individual mistakes or have played well on one side of the ball and failed on the other: the Reds absolutely shut down a Leeds side that has looked threatening of late, but failed to create much of anything, for example.

There will be excuses given the injury struggles and Mohamed Salah’s absence in attack, but (as many others have said already) most of these were conscious choices by Liverpool hierarchy: though the ankle injury was not to be predicted, we knew Alexander Isak would come in having played no games for four months and would lack fitness; we knew Salah had AFCON. Hugo Ekitiké’s injury is pretty devastating on days like today, and we all hope he’ll be fit again soon.

Liverpool’s next match isn’t one to judge progress on, as a domestic cup tie will likely see some rotation — an assumption all the stronger as the minutes ticked on and we saw no sniff of the likes of Curtis Jones coming on. Liverpool will want to prove against Burnley next time out in the league that they can perform well against a deep-lying team at the bottom end of the table just as well as they can against the likes of Arsenal.

*Barring a trip to Wembley. AYO, come on the FA Cup Reds.

**To be fair, Arsenal have beat just four top 10 sides this season: Aston Villa (1W 1L), Brentford, Newcastle United, and Manchester United. They’ve drawn at home to Manchester City, Sunderland, 10-man Chelsea. Liverpool beat them at home, just like Aston Villa — these are the only two top 10 sides Arsenal have played twice. Their record against the top 10 as it stands is W4 D3 L2, comparable to Liverpool’s — but no one would argue the Reds are playing better.