Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal

It is some game of football. It is one that Liverpool are so present and so competitive in and in some respects it is similar to the April instalment of this fixture in that it’s hard to know whether to be delighted or frustrated.

There’s lots of positives for Liverpool and for Arsenal.

The team that are the winners of this game are Manchester City.

And yet the people that are the winners are us. Me, you, them. For getting to witness and be a part of that brilliant sporting spectacle.

Two really good sides and while it may not have the quantity of goals some would’ve hoped for, we still see some high-quality football, and it’s a game where the art of defending is at its best.

The four centre-backs in the game are all superb. Ibrahima Konate and William Saliba are the stars but Virgil Van Dijk and Gabriel aren’t far behind. The four of them put in performances that John Terry and Nemanja Vidic would be proud of.

It’s telling how Cody Gakpo and Gabriel Jesus are both so ineffective in the game - the centre-backs dealt with them with ease.

It is a flying start from Arsenal and they have two set-pieces before they do open the scoring through Gabriel. Konate is a little uncertain and plays him onside while Gakpo loses the Brazilian completely.

In many ways, conceding so early is the best time to ship a goal but it is also once which sends a huge message of fear around the stadium. Fuck me, these might be better than we realised. Christ, are we not at this level?

And those doubts and worries persist for the first fifteen to twenty minutes, when Liverpool exhibit panic and uncertainty in their own abilities. They are trying to force things and in a not dissimilar fashion to the United game last weekend, lacking patience.

Arsenal swarm central areas early on, Declan Rice starts and ends the game superbly, while the first 20 is probably the best spell Martin Odegaard has in the game too - popping up everywhere. He is a clever player.

One of the Reds’ biggest issues in that opening salvo is a struggle to keep the ball. It gets to a point where Arsenal are almost happy for us to have the ball, knowing that it won’t last long.

The big difference in Arsenal this season compared to last is their work without the ball. Arsenal are incredible off-the-ball. The way they cut off passing lanes, the way they limit time on the ball, the way they maintain the ball once they have retained it. Their back four and goalkeeper David Raya are all so good with the ball at their feet. 

For that opening period, Liverpool can’t really handle their off-the-ball work and their shape. What strikes me most about Arsenal is their shape and discipline - they look a bit like a Jose Mourinho Chelsea side in that you just don’t see them conceding chances.

Mohamed Salah hits the side netting from a Gakpo flick-on but it is all a bit searching from Liverpool and it is a while before there is any rhythm or pattern to their play.

A big flashpoint in the first half is the non-award of a penalty when Odegaard slips and handles in the area. It happens fast so I can forgive Chris Kavanagh not awarding it but the fact that VAR doesn’t overturn this is quite unbelievable.

I get that Odegaard is unfortunate but for me, this is a stonewall penalty. While it’s unintentional, the touch from the hand completely kills the momentum of the ball and that’s sufficient for a penalty.

The fact is, Liverpool equalise a few minutes later. If they are awarded a penalty and score it, it’s unlikely they push for a second so soon after, so to score so soon after the non-penalty award levels it out a bit and makes it less of a factor.

It’s the first time Trent Alexander-Arnold has any time on the ball. I’ve been vocal about the faults of the inverted system, particularly given the performance on Wednesday with natural full-backs, but one thing you do get is his ability to switch the play with long diagonals.

That’s what happens here but it’s not from a midfield position, but a quarter-back role. He’s in between Konate and Van Dijk and sends a beautifully weighted ball out to the right flank into Salah’s direction. 

Have a look at Liverpool’s setup at this moment. It’s 3-3-4. Gakpo and Luis Diaz are central with Salah and Kostas Tsimikas wide. Alexander-Arnold has dropped in between the two centre-backs, and he’s been effective there a few times this season - the latter stages of Newcastle and most of the Villa game spring to mind.

It’s a brilliant pass and Salah takes it well. Oleksandr Zinchenko is a good footballer but is never a left-back and for me is Arsenal’s big weakness. Salah stands him up, takes him on with a few touches and then leathers it with his left into the roof of the net.

Raya doesn’t do much wrong here; it’s the power and placement that beats him here.

It’s Salah’s ninth goal against Arsenal for Liverpool, he also has eleven against City and twelve against United.

I know he can sometimes get marked out of the big games but he is always Liverpool’s man for the big occasion, especially at Anfield.

From here on, Liverpool have the better of the remainder of the first half, certainly in terms of the ball, but do suffer two blows.

Tsimikas is withdrawn after a clash with Bukayo Saka which leads to a comical collision with Jurgen Klopp. For Tsimikas, this injury - a medium-term one at least - comes at an awful time, when he’s bang in form and playing most games.

For Liverpool, it’s a bit of a disaster. Losing Tsimikas to a freakishly similar injury to Andy Robertson means we’re now without a recognised left-back for potentially quite a period.

Joe Gomez comes on there and does brilliantly - more on him later.

One of the final acts of the first half is the chance that Saka and Gabriel Martinelli conspire to not score from. Saka gets the run on Gomez, just on, and Alisson comes out to close down the angle but doesn’t quite get it right.

Some of Saka’s cynical fouling in the second half drew anger from the Anfield crowd but he could really have gone down here and got himself a penalty, and Alisson might’ve been off too. He doesn’t, and instead the ball goes out to Martinelli, who hits the side netting. It turns out Saka was offside anyway, so a penalty wouldn’t have been given regardless.

Other than that, Liverpool are the better team from minute twenty until about seventy. Much of what helps Liverpool get back into the game is the performances of Wataru Endo and Curtis Jones, our two best midfielders right now.

Endo starts a little slow but soon gets a grip on Odegaard and limits his influence on the game to zero. He has a tremendous game. Some of his vertical passing is brilliant and in probably the most intense game he’s ever been involved in, on a yellow card, he is sublime.

He wins 100% of his tackles and for the period that Liverpool are on top, outshines Rice, one of the best defensive midfielders around. Endo is 1.78m yet wins 100% of his aerial duels - do you see how remarkable that is? 

I had worries about him getting overrun by Rice, Odegaard and Kai Havertz ahead of the game but for most of it, he’s the best midfielder on the park.

After a tricky start to life at Liverpool, he’s looking more and more of a bargain with every day that passes by.

Jones is such an intelligent player and almost models his performance on what Odegaard produces early on. He pops up in front of the centre-backs, you see him on the flanks, his ball retention is superb and his counter-pressing is genuinely incredible.

Endo and Jones produce performances that prime Fabinho and Georginio Wijnaldum would’ve been proud of.

The biggest credit I can give them is that they are fifth and sixth names on the teamsheet for me right now, behind the obvious four of Alisson, Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold and Salah.

The second half starts well for the Reds and they have three reasonable openings within the first ten minutes. 

Arsenal are on the ropes but this isn’t the Arsenal of last season or years gone by. They are robust and made of stern stuff and they look like a team that defend like potential champions. For all Liverpool’s pressure and possession in that period, Arsenal do so well to keep them at arms’ length and restrict genuine opportunities.

Saliba puts in one of the best opposition defensive performances I’ve ever seen at Anfield, and Gabriel is top-class too. While Raya can be a little flappy at times, Arsenal negate this by simply not allowing Liverpool to shoot at him - so many times promising attacks are snuffed out through no fault of Liverpool’s but because of top-class defending.

It’s the same story at the other end. Konate is an absolute unit and his dealing of Martinelli when the winger is through on goal is world-class. Konate has his faults at times but when he’s in a run of games he is magnificent, and his one-v-one defending is some of the best I’ve ever seen at Liverpool. He’s another who always rises to the big occasion - I can’t think of a big game where he’s been poor.

I always think back to Old Trafford in 2021. Yes, we win 5-0 that day but before Naby Keita opens the scoring, Bruno Fernandes has a chance which Konate deals with impeccably. That was only his third Liverpool appearance. 

The Champions League final in the same season, he is phenomenal and deserved more than a runner’s up medal.

Meanwhile, Van Dijk is immaculate again. He has re-established himself as the best defender in the world again and has been Liverpool’s player of the season, and perhaps the Premier League player of the season, so far. He is just not missing a beat.

At Anfield last night you get to witness four of the very best centre-backs around and while we all love goals and moments of wonderful attacking play, the art of defending is a joy to watch too.

On the topic of defenders, Gomez’s performance deserves an enormous amount of credit. To come on to a game of that magnitude, in an atmosphere that hot, out of position, and perform so well, is some feat.

Saka is so quiet in the second half and Gomez simply does a job on him. Only, ‘does a job’, would be doing Gomez a disservice, because he is more than just a serviceable player, he is a very fucking good one and still manages to support the attack and nearly curls a shot in after cutting in on his right foot neatly.

The way he locks down Saka is great - the last thing he wants to be dealing with is an inverted full-back - and I was so pleased to see Alvaro Arbeloa’s iconic performance against Lionel Messi, out of position at left-back referenced by The Anfield Wrap last night.

Gomez is going to be at left-back for the foreseeable now that Tsimikas has joined Robertson on the treatment table and it’s testament to how big a part he’s played this season that while gutted about Tsimikas, I’m also happy that Gomez will get the starts that his performances have warranted.

The issue it does bring, though, is that we now lose the option of Gomez at right-back and Alexander-Arnold in midfield, something we’ve been doing in the latter stages of games recently.

And it’s Alexander-Arnold who is involved in the biggest flashpoint of the second half. Gomez wins a header from an Arsenal corner and it breaks for Salah, who carries well. Liverpool have a five-on-one and Salah does everything right, he picks the pass to his right to Alexander-Arnold, who hits the bar.

The ball bobbles just as he’s striking it and that’s how he ends up putting so much height on it. For me, the right option was to take a touch and shoot or drag it back across goal. 

It’s a moment Liverpool will look back on.

Not just because they don’t win the game but because from this point onwards, Arsenal wrestle back control. Rice ends the game superbly and doesn’t allow Liverpool the control of the game they had enjoyed from the half-hour mark.

Other than Gomez, Klopp’s substitutes didn’t make a telling impact.

He brings on Elliott for Gakpo, meaning Salah goes central with Elliott on the right wing. It’s one of few games this season where Elliott has struggled to influence it from the bench. I prefer him in midfield as he’s so good on the ball, and I do worry about his lack of pace to be a winger - watch back that counter-attack and you’ll see he can’t keep up with Salah or Alexander-Arnold.

Nunez replaces Diaz, who has a bit of a knee problem. Diaz had worked hard but once again, nothing had happened for him and his once-famed dribbling abilities seem to have deserted him.

He was arguably better than Gakpo though, who once again proves elusive. I think people forget how tall and big Gakpo is. At 1.91m, he’s just 3cm shorter than Konate, for example, yet is so poor and soft both in the air and physically. In the first half, Saliba and Gabriel walk all over him and as he lacks pace and power, he’s just not hard to play against for centre-backs.

That’s not to say he’s not a talented player. His skillset is impressive and he’s good with the ball at his feet, but useless with his back to goal. I’m starting to wonder whether his best work may be done as a left-sided eight, where he can drive and make intelligent runs.

He’s not a number nine, or even a false nine, that’s for sure.

Nunez brings something on that left flank and I’d like to see him get a bit of a run there because he may be more effective out wide. 

I think our best central option is Diogo Jota, who is still desperately missed.

Klopp’s other sub is to take off Jones and replace him with Ryan Gravenberch. Jones had been excellent and I think it’s noticeable how poor Dominik Szoboszlai becomes after Jones leaves the field.

Szoboszlai’s work off the ball was terrific but he’s getting bogged down in this and not producing the quality with the ball that we saw at the start of the season or even on Wednesday night. Losing Jones was a disaster for him - he is the player that provides the balance a midfield needs and taking him off was a poor decision from Klopp.

A poor decision that gets worse with every second thanks to Gravenberch’s cameo, which will go down as one of the worst sub appearances you’re likely to see. He loses the ball pretty much every time he gets it and it’s no coincidence that Jones’ withdrawal and Gravenberch’s entrance is just at the point that Arsenal steady the ship and regain control.

And so, a point, a result neither side will be ecstatic with but equally neither will be disappointed with. Both sides come out with 0.9xG, 13 shots and possession was split 51-49.

This game was 2nd vs 1st and they are two very well-matched teams.

In terms of the bigger picture, this would’ve been an excellent result had Liverpool beaten United last weekend, but without the win there, three points felt more necessary here.

A point from top spot after eighteen games, with progression in both the Europa League and the League Cup, is something we’d have all banked at the start of the season, and it has been achieved in adversity, with the Reds still not having named their strongest lineup once.

To me, Arsenal looked more like title winners in this game but Liverpool perhaps looked more like winning. While that may seem a paradox, there was a control and a cohesion to Arsenal that Liverpool have lacked at times this season.

Arsenal have beaten City and United but Liverpool are perhaps still waiting for that knockout blow, that statement win. 

They’ve not had enough wins against the big sides in the last few years - very few defeats but a high number of draws. Remember, in 21/22 we draw every game against City, Chelsea and Tottenham and you just feel they’re waiting for a big win against a fellow top team.

They’ve had two chances to deliver that this week and not come up with the goods in either, though can be proud of their performance in this one.

If you’re not going to win against the top sides, you have to be flawless against everyone from the bottom half, and to be fair, apart from Luton, Liverpool have done that this season.

You worry about moments and moments that come back to haunt - the Nunez miss at Luton, the disallowed Diaz goal at Spurs and the Alexander-Arnold miss here. But all teams can say that.

What is interesting is that for much of this season Liverpool have been getting results without performances, whereas here they get the opposite.

It’s a game that will live in the memory. A joy to watch two wonderful teams, though both with their imperfections, which made this such a spectacle. It’s proof that football doesn’t need to be a goal-fest to be enjoyable. 

The intensity to the game was special. You’ll do well to witness a better match for quality all season.

And what a season it is. Both of this teams could win the league, they are the two best in the country right now, yet it’s also highly possible that neither of them will do so.

That’s the Premier League. And that’s why we don’t need no Super League.

Daniel