Honours even at The Emirates
Arsenal 2 Liverpool 2, 27th October 2024
ARSENAL 2 (Saka 9, Merino 43)
LIVERPOOL 2 (van Dijk 18, Salah 81)
Wisdom comes easily on a Sunday morning and especially when accompanied by the sizzling smells of a cooked breakfast on the grill and a Radiohead hails and wails about a thief before some Arctic Monkeys promised me the tranquility of a casino and hotel amid the beautiful ambience of surreal, dreamlike, discordant, musical noise. I messaged my footballing brother in arms Andy (a Seattle Seahawks and Boston Red Sox fan but please don’t mention these heavy sporting crosses he has to bear lest he begin sobbing uncontrollably) and the wisdom I imparted to my brother was even a Reds defeat today, to one of only two other teams that can realistically challenge for the Premier League title, would still see Arne Slot’s seasonal record as Liverpool manager standing at 11 wins and 2 defeats from 13 games. A faintly ridiculous start for the genial Dutchman steering Jürgen Klopp’s team in a magnificent direction, thank you all the same. This is not to decry Slot in any way, and rather a large compliment in fact. One addition to the squad (currently injured) aside, Slot has actively wanted to see the talent bequeathed him, a preferred starting XI seemingly cast in stone (injuries permitting) and where Jürgen desired a constant full court press, Arne wants his team to have control of the game, control of the ball, and then a full on press to squeeze the life and will from their opponents.
The children of The Matrix will wail and gnash their teeth at every Liverpool game that ends in a draw let alone a defeat, but that’s where the wisdom of an easy Sunday morning cooked breakfast returns. Way before kick-off I’d already settled for a draw and communicated as such to my footballing brother. We’d still only be a point adrift of Manchester City and four clear of Arsenal in third in our collective challenge for the title nearing the quarter distance mark in our three horse race. My reasoned wisdom hadn’t changed when losing 2–1 at half-time, but there was more than a heightened edge to my pre-game nervousness as Arsenal battered Liverpool into defensive submission and a second poorly defended goal of the evening in the final 15 minutes of a first half easily shaded by the home team. Yet drawing 2–2 at full-time still left an empty hole, a pang of “what might have been”, as the Reds had such a control of the game in the second half as to force Arsenal into spoiling tactics, time wasting, and now themselves clinging on for a draw that pre-game that I was happy to settle for at half-time but at full-time?
Much less so.
The footballing wisdom, Sunday morning cooked breakfast or not, was easy to spot as our first game of an English winter was played out beneath the dazzling lights of a modern North London amphitheatre. Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal were far and away the better team in a first-half where for the final 15 minutes they held supreme dominance of the game and deservedly led at the break. A high press combined with Gabriel Martinelli attacking Trent Alexander-Arnold and Bukayo Saka getting the better of Andy Robertson in the wide areas (and not just for the game’s opening goal) ensured Arsenal held sway over a Liverpool team who’d equalised Saka’s early goal almost immediately but never had a true foothold in the game until their utter dominance of it in the second half. Shorn of defenders Gabriel Magalhães and Jurrien Timber from an already makeshift defence, Arteta’s Arsenal retreated further and further inside their own half of the field happy to resolutely defend their 2–1 advantage and although a Liverpool goal was coming, and it was, the Reds still never pressed home their overwhelming advantage into a tidal wave of shots on David Raya in the Arsenal goal who, aside from picking the ball from his net after Mo Salah’s equalising goal on 81 minutes, didn’t have a single shot to save.
More wisdom arrives in the knowledge that three of the four goals scored today could and should have been defended better by teams with pretensions to the highest crown in English football. Both Ben White’s searching pass for Saka’s opening goal and Trent Alexander-Arnold’s even better through ball for Salah’s late game equaliser, from an almost identical position on the Emirate’s pitch 72 minutes apart, were beautifully incisive changes of play that led to a goal, but both were subsequently defended poorly be each team and the Reds defending for Mikel Merino’s 43rd minute headed goal left more than a little to be desired. Or we could revel in White’s pass, Saka’s instant control and cut inside a floundering Andy Robertson before he rifled an unstoppable shot into the top corner of Caoimhin Kelleher’s net, Luis Díaz’s deft headed flick at the near post for his skipper’s headed equaliser minutes later, the sheer quality of Declan Rice’s sublime free-kick that allowed Mikel Merino a free header past a stranded Kelleher or luxuriate in Trent Alexander’s pinpoint through ball to the inch perfect square pass from Darwin Núñez rolling perfectly for Mo Salah to bury a deserved equaliser.
A pre-game Premier League point was hoped and prayed for.
A post-game Premier League point seemed a little harsh on Liverpool.
But as a trip to Brighton and “Sussex by the Sea” looms large in the season calendar, Arne Slot’s Reds have 11 wins and just a single defeat against their record from 13 games played in all competitions and should they return from the south coast on Wednesday with another win to their name, they’ll still be in all four competitions they entered at the start of the Dutchman’s first season in the Anfield hot seat.
Arne’s Afterword
“Going two times behind against a very strong and good Arsenal team and then to get a point is pleasing to see, especially because we had to play an away game in Europe this week. We had one day less to recover and to prepare and then to go two times behind with the fans being so loud and us coming back so strongly second half — because I think we deserved to be 2–1 down or one goal down at half-time — then is very pleasing to see that we had the energy and that we were so strong to fight ourselves back in the game”.
“But for me the one that stood out today was? That’s a question! I think Konate was also very good for us today. He doesn’t always get the attention he deserves, in my opinion. He’s asking to be the Man of the Match all the time, but he’s coming closer and closer and closer to achieving that because I think he had a great performance today”.
“I know you guys like to talk about title contenders and where we are exactly in the league — that’s also part of your job. The only thing I look at is, ‘Can you get a result in a difficult away game as this one?’ And the way we did it pleased me a lot and we’re only nine or 10 games into the season. But to see that we can compete with such a strong Arsenal team in their stadium, that is very pleasing to see. But what it exactly will lead towards in the end of the season, I cannot tell you yet”.
Thanks for reading. I often lament that despite my hundreds of articles here I rarely if ever make contact with genuine Liverpool fans so, if that is you, please say a hearty hello and, whilst you’re here, can I interest you in these spectacularly good self-published books on the Mighty Reds?
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.