There will be no 100 point shine for champions. At Emirates Stadium, Arsenal produced an exciting display of deep-back defense, leavened by two slapstick moments from Liverpool’s baseline. It was enough to inflict a third league loss on Jürgen Klopp’s team, and provide an unexpected twist after another piece of defensive fragility left the Red and White shirts a goal after 19 minutes, and once again looked like a unit. porous.
The first three goals in the first half in this 2-1 win at Arsenal stemmed from defensive errors caused by vigorous pressure forward. The fact that the two most decisive came from Virgil van Dijk and Alisson was a surprise and a tribute to the sustained defensive concentration of the Mikel Arteta team, who will be very happy about this show of resistance.
In the end, Liverpool had shot 24 shots on goal for all three of Arsenal and spent the second half playing a violently compressed game of full attack against the desperate but stubborn defense.
But Klopp will still be concerned about this defeat. The season may be almost over, a strange and zombie thing going through the midsummer moves and Liverpool may have slaughtered the rest of the field.
But the sport never rests, and right now Klopp’s team has lost six and won five of their last 13 games in all competitions, keeping only three clean sheets in the process. The final whistle can’t come fast enough.
Arteta made five changes here, including three in the team’s defensive heart, though as always with this Arsenal incarnation, the word ‘defensive’ came with a series of shrill notices when the teams started. Klopp played his best available XI, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain given the most delicate return in this empty North London megabowl.
It was a sultry, slow, slightly frantic start for both teams. There is something particularly strenuous on the larger terrains at the moment. The Emirates is a great cantilever thing, welcomed these days of confinement to an excess of empty air. At first, Arsenal struggled to find any rhythm in midfield, pressured by that hungry double-lined black shirt.
After 12 minutes, the first opportunity came through a mini error by Emiliano Martínez, who went to hammer the ball on the field and saw his clearance blocked on the outside of the post by a flying Roberto Firmino. It is still surprising how, week after week, the people most shocked by Arsenal’s defense remain the Arsenal defense.
The first goal came from a similar configuration. Sadio Mané almost charges another authorization from Martínez. His clearance was easily retrieved in midfield. Firmino turned and played on Andy Robertson. The cut found an unmarked Mané to score a goal that met little resistance from the midline to the bottom of the net.
For a time, it seemed like Arsenal would gobble up its own weakness against this kind of pressure, with Firmino as a highly-skilled block master and spinning rig.
But it was an equally good spell of pressing on the other end that brought Arsenal’s two goals.
After 32 minutes, Van Dijk was so busy complaining about a minor jerk from Reiss Nelson that he ended up playing a terrible direct pass to Alexandre Lacazette, who passed the ball to Alisson’s side and put it into the net. Van Dijk frowned, pointed, and waved his arms. But even the most majestic defenders can be rushed.
Just before the break, it was Alisson, too cute in the middle, who couldn’t execute a delicate chip on Robertson from his own goal mouth. Lacazette intercepted and played the ball inside for Nelson to finish neatly. Arsenal had two goals from two shots on target and an unexpected but well-earned lead at the break.
Liverpool started the second half as a champion team with a flea to the ear. After 50 minutes there was an almighty fight in the Arsenal box, with four shots at close range swallowed by a series of blocks.
Moments later, Mohamed Salah produced a surprising change of feet to evade David Luiz’s lunge, then fired an imaginatively conceived shot that was hit on the bar. And for long periods, the game was played not just in Arsenal’s half, but in his penalty area.
There was a good defense in extremis, David Luiz and Rob Holding threw their bodies on the line. Kieran Tierney and Bukayo Saka did a diligent job of holding the left side together. Only Salah really seemed to have the ability of a closed room to forge a clear shot at goal from a series of urgent but repetitive Liverpool attacks.
There were more opportunities for Mané and Salah, and a streak of Liverpool corners in overtime. But somehow, that red and white line never seemed to have been violated.
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