Final score: Arsenal 2 - 1 Liverpool
Lacazette 32' Mane 20'
Nelson 44'
It's a funny old game, isn't it? Those who watched this match would be hard-pressed to disagree, based on how events unfolded yesterday evening at the Emirates Stadium.
Since securing the title at Anfield against Crystal Palace, Liverpool seem to have lost their unassailable superiority over every other team in the Premier League. Whilst they have put in good performances since then, defensive mistakes and a lack of clinical finishing led them to a heavy defeat at the Etihad and allowed Burnley to steal a point with the help of a superb performance from Nick Pope, who again showed why he should be England's number 1.
Arsenal, comparatively, came into the game in reasonably good form, with 10 points in 4 games followed by a poor defensive effort in the North London Derby.
Arteta decided to make plenty of changes as a result of said poor performance at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with Holding, Nelson, Torreira and Cedric all getting starts, and the surprise exclusion of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Dani Ceballos, perhaps with Saturday's FA Cup tie against Manchester City in mind.
For the first half an hour of the match, Liverpool dominated possession, and Arsenal struggled to get hold of the ball for any length of time. The combination of an effective Liverpool press and the lack of a ball-carrying midfielder or centre-half meant that the Arsenal defenders often found themselves stuck deep in their own half, and were forced to clear the ball upfield, from which our attacking players rarely retained possession. In previous games, Ceballos has fulfilled this role, dropping in to pick the ball up and taking it out with the help of the wing-backs and Xhaka. Without him, Holding in particular looked very nervous on the ball, and even Martinez was caught out once by Firmino, with the resulting deflection skimming the outside of the post.
Inevitably, Liverpool started to create chances, and the lack of understanding between Arsenal's three centre-backs showed when Robertson made a good run down the left, before crossing to Sadio Mane who made no mistake. The game was all set up for a Liverpool rout, and I for one was not optimistic of us getting back into the game at all. Until...
Things got weird. Some decent frontline pressure from Arsenal forced a mistake from the usually calm and assured van Dijk. His mishit backpass allowed Lacazette to sneak in and round Alisson, before slotting home well to level the scoreboard at 1-1. I, along with Klopp and all his players, could not believe what I had just seen.
Despite looking rattled, Liverpool continued to outplay Arsenal, albeit not creating much in the final third. And then it happened again. A poor pass from Alisson was again well intercepted by Lacazette, before squaring it to Nelson, who finished well for his first league goal. One defensive mistake is a rarity from this Liverpool team. Two in the space of 15 minutes is downright unheard of, unless it's Arsenal we're talking about. And so, going into the break, the Gunners led 2-1.
The message from Arteta at half-time? Park the bus. For most of the second half, Arsenal did nothing but sit in and absorb wave after wave of Liverpool attack. Chance after chance after chance fell for Liverpool players, with Martinez coming to the rescue on multiple occasions, and plenty of Arsenal defenders throwing themselves around in desperate attempts to block shots. In the second half, Liverpool had over 80% possession, and in total had some 24 shots. We should have made it 3-1 at one point with our only attempt in the entire second half, but Willock sliced his golden opportunity wide. Incredibly, none of Liverpool's efforts found the back of the net and Arsenal somehow managed to hold on to all three points.
Arsenal certainly didn't cover themselves in glory with their performance in this one, but were clinical when gifted opportunities by Liverpool, who dominated the game but failed to make their opportunities count.
Player ratings:
Martinez: 8 - Another good performance from the Argentinian, who undoubtedly has some of the best hands in the league, although at times his distribution was a little shaky. If he keeps this up, Arteta will have a hard time choosing between him and Leno.
Cedric: 5 - An average game for the right-back, who looked exposed defensively at times and made little impact going forward.
Holding: 6 - Looked very nervous at the start and is not the most comfortable on the ball, but put in a decent shift in the second half to prevent Liverpool scoring.
Luiz: 6 - Struggled to play out from the back, which is usually his role. Like Holding, he put in a good shift second half, but still enabled Liverpool to have lots of chances which they should have converted.
Tierney: 7 - A solid performance from the Scot, who continues to show his versatility and defensive excellence, though ideally he should be playing full-back rather than as a centre-half given his attacking capabilities as well.
Torreira: 6 - Contributed to the defensive effort, but is certainly no replacement for Ceballos in terms of ball-carrying and moving play from defence to attack.
Xhaka: 6 - Similar to Torreira, particularly struggled without Ceballos to move the ball forward into attacking positions, but was good defensively.
Nelson: 6 - Took his goal well, but otherwise contributed little to attacks, though admittedly this is difficult without a real playmaker in midfield.
Lacazette: 7 - Capitalised on mistakes by van Dijk and Alisson well, and was clinical when given the chance. The lack of attacking play by Arsenal, however, meant that apart from this he was not involved often.
Pepe: 5 - Rarely got hold of the ball, and when he did, the lack of support meant he ended up being dispossessed most of the time.
Subs: Aubameyang, Willock, Ceballos, Maitland-Niles, Kolasinac.
Next up for Arsenal is a trip to Villa Park, against an Aston Villa team desperate for points in their fight to stay up.
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