Liverpool vs. Arsenal: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

When you create EIGHT big chances against the league leaders from over 20 shots, miss a penalty given by a ref who never gives you anything (just Paul Tierney's second big decision for Liverpool in 25 games), miss a last-second chance almost on the goal-line, see the linesman DELIBERATELY ELBOW ONE OF YOUR PLAYERS IN THE THROAT, and from 2-0 down you wonder how you didn't win 3-2, you feel like you've almost seen it all.

Especially when the last league game at Anfield was a 7-0 win over Man United. Strange days indeed.

Had the winner occurred at the end of the copious (but still insufficient) amount of time wasted by Arsenal, it would have felt fitting.

The tactical injuries are seen every game at Anfield now: keeper down early with mystery injury; centre-back down in the box; player down for three minutes for ... heading the ball. Arsenal were as bad as Newcastle for time-wasting (and that last-second chance was converted, after eight added minutes), and it's a shame that cheating has become the way to improve results. Shithousery in small doses is fine; but this felt industrial in scale.

The game's concern for genuine head injuries is now an excuse to pretend to have injuries. The cynicism is disgusting, and a stain on the game.

Still, if ever there was an advert for confidence and (in-game momentum), this was it.

If momentum carried over from game to game, Arsenal would have walked it.

But momentum is a slippery shape-shifter, and for 40 minutes Liverpool couldn't pass the ball or make a tackle and Arsenal couldn't miss the goal, yet by the second half the Gunners were unable to do anything to stop an absolute xG onslaught (as probably no one has described football before).

Arsenal started the game with momentum and ended it holding on for dear life. They were lucky to leave without losing 3-2 or 4-2 or even 5-2. To create 4.0xG against the league leaders is insane, at three times the rate of the visitors.

Energy is a weird thing, in that it's tied up with in-game momentum. Liverpool couldn't run; then they couldn't stop running. Even with a midfield that can't run that much.

The pressure lifted when Mo Salah scored, and yet later, after he missed the target for the second penalty in a row (which happen to be both Liverpool's league penalties this season), he then couldn't hit the proverbial barn door. Before the penalty he'd already had a brainless shot with the outside of his left foot from the right-hand byline, which due to the laws of physics could only ever go into the Kop. Then late-on he blazed over from close range after being tugged back, which should have been a second penalty (that someone else could have taken).

Still, he was a threat, and that's a good sign. The one shot he got right after the penalty miss was then deflected to produce a superb save from Aaron Ramsdale (always a hyperactive shot-stopper but now playing behind bigger centre-backs), who then saved when Ibrahima Konaté chested the ball almost on the goal-line after Darwin Núñez headed it across.

I think chesting the ball is a sensible action when it comes at that height and there's no time to think, but somehow he plopped it down into the centre of the goal and into Ramsdale's gloves instead of the back of the net. It was a perfect pace-off chest-back.

To try and make sense of that 100 minutes (and the mad half-time) is almost a senseless act in itself.

Liverpool were about as bad as they've been in a nervous first half, and then unstoppable once the pressure lifted and the crowd rose with them.

Talk about talking points. I'll do my best to sift through the rest of the chaos below.

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