This was the first of three games against Liverpool in the space of 6 days - a home League game sandwiched in between 2 Champions League games. Liverpool being the somewhat boring side that they are, few Gooners were truly excited about the prospect of 270 minutes of Scouse hoofing in a week. Seeing them twice a season is bad enough - three times in a week is far too much! But, at least there would be a chance to look at Fernando Torres at Emirates for the first time, and quite a player he looks too.Arsenal started pretty well, creating a few decent chances in the opening minutes, which on another day could have gone in. We opened the scoring after about 20 minutes, when a Robin Van Persie cross was met by Adebayor. He seemed to hang in the air for ages, before the ball bounced off his head into the back of the net for 1-0. The celebration was big in the stands and on the pitch, an important goal.
Yet almost as soon as the game had restarted, and certainly before the celebration in the stands had died down, Liverpool were level. A loose ball fell to Steven Gerrard, who was left unattended for a little too long. By the time the Arsenal defence woke up to him, he was in the penalty area, and they were too scared to touch him. A cross from the goal line was turned in by Dirk Kuyt, although at first glance, it looked like it might have been an own goal to me. From high to low inside a couple of minutes, and most annoying that it was a defensive lapse (again) that was responsible for the goal.
From that moment on, Liverpool had got what they wanted - an away goal. The onus was of course on Arsenal to try to score again, and the Scousers put plenty of men behind the ball to try to avoid conceding. Attacking players were replaced with more defensive players, and they held out successfully for the rest of the game. Arsenal had most of the possession, and created all of the chances - but the luck of the last minute winner at Bolton on Saturday seemed to have exhausted luck supplies for the time being. A blatant penalty on Hleb was not given, and Bendtner seemed to clear one of our shots off the line - just one of those days where things didn't happen for us.
All in all, this was one of Arsenal's more frustrating performances, where we had the ball and made (some) chances, but didn't finish them, and allowed a defensive lapse to throw away a lot of good work. The ref's failure to give us a penalty didn't help, but in truth, the squad look to be running on empty in many respects. Cesc Fabregas looked knackered, Hleb was ineffective (unless you count losing the ball and playing numerous poor passes as being effective), and a few others looked like they were running out of legs towards the end. Theo Walcott again looked good, hopefully he will start one of the next few games, preferably in place of Eboue, who has no attacking penetration whatsoever down the right.
Despite the disappointment of this result, I still think we can go and get a result at Anfield. It was hugely encouraging that, one defensive lapse for the goal aside, we defended well - to the extent that Torres was not really in the game at any point. A lot will depend on who scores first at Anfield - if it is Arsenal, it could shut the Kop up, force Liverpool to attack in search of a goal, and possibly help Arsenal win by a couple of goals. If it is Liverpool, expect every man behind the ball, hoofing galore, and the "famous Kop atmosphere" as the Scousers cheer their team to another dull victory, and all the papers write about what great fans they are. For the sake of football, lets hope its the former - Liverpool are not a great side, so I hope that Arsenal can secure next week what their performance tonight deserved.
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