Arsenal and Liverpool shared the spoils in a goalless draw at the Emirates Stadium this evening. The result reflected a contest that swung dramatically between the two sides and highlighted both Arsenal’s attacking intent and Liverpool’s resilience during a difficult period for the reds.
Arsenal’s early dominance fails to deliver a breakthrough
Liverpool arrived in poor form, yet the fixture offered them a chance to remind observers that they remain champions of England. Arsenal, however, set the early tone. They started the match at a relentless pace, pressing aggressively and attempting to overwhelm their opponents with intensity and movement. For the opening 25 minutes, the contest was almost entirely one-sided, with Arsenal dominating possession and territory everywhere except inside the Liverpool goal.
Despite fielding a side without a recognised striker, Liverpool adopted an extremely defensive approach that even their own supporters may not have expected. The caution was deliberate, as any space afforded to Arsenal risked allowing the Gunners to break through and cause serious damage. Liverpool absorbed sustained pressure and defended deep, focusing on organisation and discipline to survive the early onslaught.
Against the run of play, it was Liverpool who came closest to scoring before the break. Conor Bradley struck the crossbar, a moment that briefly silenced the home crowd and reminded Arsenal of the threat that remained. At half-time, the scoreline remained level, leaving both managers with plenty to address.
Momentum shifts after the interval
The second half told a very different story. When the teams returned, Liverpool quickly asserted itself and began to control the rhythm of the game. Arsenal were unexpectedly forced into chasing the ball and struggled to retain possession, while Liverpool won second balls consistently, a stark contrast to the first half.
Liverpool continued to create opportunities, and even attacking substitutions from Mikel Arteta failed to shift the balance back in Arsenal’s favour. As the match entered its final stages, tension increased. Arsenal pushed forward in search of a winner, refusing to settle for a draw, but Liverpool remained mentally strong and well organised.
In the end, Arne Slot once again avoided defeat against Arsenal, extending his record to five matches without losing to them, as both sides settled for a point after a compelling tactical battle.
I didnt see future champions anywhere on that pitch today. Totally let the occasion get to us in every single way and Liverpool and Slot handled us pretty easily at the end of the day. You can only not let City back into a title race so many times. I’ve watched Arsenal totally lose control of a season enough times to know the signs and it’s not looking good unless Arteta makes some serious changes. Enough Gyokeres, we can check his stats of basically every EPL match and a they’re simply horrendous and unjustifiable. Odegaard is not an automatic start when he plays when zero urgency. It’s not a crime to try and start a game fast! Saka’s form continues to lower, had a great chance to score today and again didnt. Defense did fine as usual besides the one bad Saliba pass, and MLS getting smoked a couple times.
Something we need to start accepting, Mikel Merino is a valid option as CF. And even in midfield and this entire squad is much better with a player like him. Jesus clearly still needs time, and Gyokeres doesnt do anything to warrant a start. The best our attack has looked this season is the spell when Merino was CF. We made it all the way to a UCL semifinal with him, time to stop discounting him just because he isn’t a flashy name. But things just can’t go on like this for our attack. Doesn’t work and January will be messy if we keep things as they are.
I beg to differ on Jesus. He is ready to start.
Let’s get him minutes in FA Cup and League Cup, I really hope he is. His defensive game from up top isn’t back yet thats for sure. His linkup play is vital and even that alone makes him more useful than Gyok.
The interchanging positional play from Merino and Eze worked very well in NLD
I’m surprised Arteta doesn’t keep that winning formula, but maybe that’s because he needs to include our captain and our most hardworking high presser in the starting line-up
we haven’t played a match as well as the NLD since. It’s been a bunch of limp performances that we’ve squeaked over the line with. Which is totally fine for a period of time, but at some point we have to show form. I thought Villa would be the turning point, but we kind of went back to being a little limp against Bounrnemouth, and today Liverpool punished us for being so lax about matches and never really playing with any sort of urgency.
This team plays too many safe passes, this team relies on taking the sting out of a match and relies on small spells of quick play That’s not what this game called for today. We have never seriously gone after a Liverpool side in I dont know how many years. We always play them with a hand break on. This is a poor LFC side and we still do the same. We couldve ran them ragged espescially in the first half but it never really happened. You’d expect Saka to be beating Kerez all match but he just stopped taking those risks.
Yup, Arteta lacked the guts to use riskier tactics against the severely crippled Liverpool
I believe he wanted to analyze Slot’s setup first in the first half before pouncing in the last thirty minutes of the game, but I think he made wrong attacker substitutions
Er…Aston Villa game ?.
Arsenal 4 Villa 1, what was that then?
Mostly a great 2nd half performance. NLD was the whole 90 minutes.
@Gai as good as Arteta is technically, his decision making at times when it matters most can be a suspect. While wait long before bringing on Madueke & Matinelli? Liverpool dominated in Second half Merino could have come in as extra body to help in midfield and challenge aerially in the box.
This game was an opportunity lost by Arteta and his Boys widen the gap at the top.
Slot got his tactics right to play combertive DM in the absence of his main CF but Arteta delayed his own substitutiin
If Madueke replaced Trossard, he could’ve gotten more time to make crosses and run as a conventional LW
I agree about Merino. If he replaced Odegaard, he could’ve worked with Eze again to confuse Van Dijk and Konate
This has to be the final straw for Goykeres. Let him use the EFL or FA cup to get his confidence. He was simply minus 1. Out team and manager lacks the bravery. No one taking shots, hardly any diagonal balls… Just safe short side passes which don’t cut it. And that has to be on the manager. You see why a Nwaneri will not get games. The fans in the stadium deserve a refund… Paying so much to watch such a tepid display.
Based on our 26 EPL goals in the second halves of the games so far, which is the highest second-half goal tally among EPL teams, Arteta and the coaches prefer to wait until the last thirty minutes before switching to riskier tactics
Unfortunately, the waiting strategy didn’t work. Arsenal were too cautious and played too safe against the heavily depleted Liverpool
It’s going to be difficult to maintain the six-point lead since we’ve still got seventeen EPL games to play, but our league rivals are also not in good condition. Hopefully they’ll also keep getting bad results
Havertz should return as soon as possible, because we need another threat in attacking set-pieces. Gyokeres is simply not good enough aerially nor can he offer good playmaking/ technical skills to create chances for his teammate
What an absolute masterclass in self-sabotage. We played scared, rolled out the red carpet, and politely invited Liverpool to attack us. Brilliant stuff. Funny thing is, aside from the scoreline, we actually showed more fight in the first leg.
If the roles were reversed and Liverpool were flying while we were stuck in the mess they’re currently in, they’d have wiped the floor with us. No mercy. But us? We specialize in playing down to the opposition and turning their bad form into a confidence booster.
Every single season we have this type of game where other title challengers slip up and we’re handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter. And every single season, we respond by tripping over our own feet.
Other than the luxury of not losing, there was absolutely nothing positive to take from that performance. Classic.
Arsenal do need a goalscoring centerforward. A typical example of how we need someone who seeks out chances in front of goal. Noni Madueke had an excellent cross, where he goes to the back line behind the defenders and passes a perfect ball in front of goal, but no one seeks out the ball. Arsenal seem drained of strength. Why did Arteta not rotate a bit earlier, when everybody can see that Arsenal don’t have the strength to be aggressive and challenging. I would have liked to have had Madueke on the pitch sooner. Saka was completely gone in the second half. Worrying, I must say. A “déjà vu”
That was a disappointing second half display TBH. Too direct to create real chances, rather giving away possession of the ball. I can’t believe we moved like that. Anyway on to the next.
We can win the league but Odegaard and Zubimendi need to be replaced in midfield. Based on today’s play you can see that Merino is under appreciated.
What a disappointment after the fanfare at the start. The men didn’t cometh after all.
Lots to like about the first half as Liverpool barely got a sniff although we couldn’t break them down. I’m not sure I’d blame Gyokeres tonight. He didn’t get much in the way of service and he did try to make space
Second half was embarrassing and a draw was lucky.
Disappointing. But not time to over react.
I don’t want to sound like the president in Mars Attacks, who when Congress is destroyed, reassures the nation in an address that two thirds of government was still firmly in place delivering the services the people voted for, but, we might have allowed ourselves to over hype the “Liverpool there for the taking” thing, whilst three of Liverpools cutting edge forward players were missing, Dyke, solarzball, macalister, kerkez, Alison, Wertz etc is still a side full of world class players, who turned up and put in a performance tonight. That was still a strong Liverpool eleven.
After their wobble, Liverpool ten unbeaten, with 5 clean sheets. Liverpool won more of the duels tonight than most sides against us this season, particularly when we took fullbacks and defenders on, and when Liverpool needed to duel to hold the ball. Arsenal needed to carry and pass better to have earned a win. But where we have come to think Arsenal are best side around this season, we need to see tonight’s struggle more often in second half of season to change our own and pundits mind about how good we are and can be. Unlike previous seasons, our fixtures in March, April, May is a good run in, unlike previous seasons we do have squad depth.
Liverpools defeat at Mancy rankles Slot, and City still need to go there. After 8th of February we might find ourselves 9 points clear or more, if we can win our next 4.
I’m not really bothered about cups, it’s only prem fixtures and results that matter to me. However, Liverpool have bested us twice this season, but this might not be the last time we meet them, we may get another chance before this ones done to prove we can best them.
SueP, Gyokeres needs to stop dropping deep looking for the ball and occupy the penalty area ormaking runs off the shoulder CB’s waiting for his Arsenal team mates to put the ball into the area or channels. There is nothing worse than seeing balls centred into box, with no waiting forward to meet it. If the balls aren’t played into Gyokeres, that is a reflection on his team mates not him.
Jesus who replaced him missed a sitter.
OG
From my vantage point I could see him looking for space in and around the box. Saka chose to go it alone much of the time and bypass him or anyone else. I couldn’t see the point of continuing to slate him
Being at one end of the ground doesn’t always make it easy to follow exactly what is happening at the other due to the challenges of perspective as was the case in the second half. It wasn’t easy to see that Jesus missed a sitter. Arsenal should have made the first half superiority count and Allison barely had a genuine save to make. The second half was awful. School boy stuff at times when not even under pressure. Silly mistakes
THANK you
SueP, thank you for your comments. I believe Gyokeres is not being properly integrated into the team or playing style, which is affecting his goal output. Its great to hear from someone actually at the game; you lucky lady! Wishing you a safe, healthy and prosperous 2026.
And to you OG
Despite the lack of goals, the club really did everything in their power to bring a bit of oomph to the proceedings. The crowd were certainly positive in the first half, but then went down the dunny in the second
Luis Skelly should go on loan to develop. He was very poor today. He offered nothing
Abul,
Not only Skelly all the 5 who came on in the 2nd half contributed almost nothing. Awful subs. Eze esp needs to know how Arteta deals with some who call themselves super stars like Auba Ozil Laca Guenduzi.
Skelly needs to be playing regular football to get back into his best rhythm.
And I’m not alone in thinking he could do a job in any of the three midfield roles.
We should use the returning Havertz as left back rather than Skelly. Havertz is a left back superstar in my understanding.
Arteta is not Guardiola or Klopp.
Cornell,
Klopp’s record is just reachable even within one season though he stayed almost a decade.
I meant style of play, not records. Klopp’s football was known as heavy-metal football and Liverpool played a very dynamic football. But they had to fight a fantastic City team those years, since the records.
Now Arsenal have very good players but we are still playing City or Liverpool like we are playing aliens. With a lot of respect. Or remember the game against 10 man Chelsea, the same…
So I blame Arteta. Look how fast City rebuilds a new competitive team.
100% agree. True.
At some point Zubimendi was our weak link. Bc he has no competition he sometimes goes to sleep. Noorgaard should rotate him. He feels too comfortable
It was a tense 0-0 draw because Arsenal made it look tense. As I said in the previous post, Arsenal’s first half approach was too conservative, too pensive, and too slow showing no urgency whatsoever. Don’t know what it is with Arsenal,,,, they seem to be allergic to playing one touch, two touch football, and playing first time crosses into the box. Opposing teams that adapt the low block system will never feel threatened or under pressure when the opposing side (Arsenal) play non urgent 5 touch, 6 touch football and taking a dozen touches to put in a cross. This was the match to take it to a wounded Liverpool. The way Arsenal played in the first half firing blanks, gave Liverpool the confidence to come at Arsenal in the second half. You can’t blame the weather because it was the same for both sides. As for Miles-Lewis-Skelly, well he’s a walking disaster, an accident waiting to happen. His positioning as a defender is woeful. I hope Post Traumatic Stress isn’t
creeping it’s ugly head into the Arsenal players. 17 matches remaining. Too early to start getting the gitters. I wasn’t expecting to be served up this shit show that Arsenal put on display. Some will make up excuses for that display,, but I expect more. This should have been a statement match to put Manchester City and Aston Villa under more pressure
👍pjennings, far too negative and cautious for a team sitting first in the EPL and playing at home.
I’m not worried even though it wasn’t a great performance. Realistically Man City are our only rivals and the way they are currently playing means they will definitely drop more points. The crucial game will be at the Etihad and if we don’t lose I believe the title will be ours at long last.
All it takes is for Haaland to find form again and they can go on a long run. He has small rough patches of form every year then goes back to scoring every game. City are 100% in this title race, and 6 point gap is nothing to them.
19 league goals is form
Even if City drops points as they just did Arteta and his team drops too. This lousy lazy man attitude and playing patterns btwn defense and midfielders has been costing us and will still do. It’s this same Liverpool that the likes of Chelsea and Man.Utd beat.
Havertz will be back in next game to replace Gyokeres who has frankly been woeful. Saka was outstanding in first half but lost his way in the second. Pass of the match was Zubimendi to Madueke, 60 plus yards, what a pass. Lewis-Skelly was a disaster waiting to happen. One good thing, we didn’t lose.
Arsenal have title winning defence. They don’t have a title winning attack.
Is that going to be enough? We have to wait and see.
I had a feeling we would draw this match. Being 8 points clear at this point would have been too good to be true.
This is a reality check especially for some of our fans who are over-confident that we will win the league.
The league is still pretty much open as it stands.
The positive is we did not lose and we are still on top with 6 points clear.
Hopefully, the boys go back to the drawing board, improve and then try and go on a pretty good winning streak.
Now, it’s over to Portsmouth in the FA Cup on Sunday.
We should rest some of our first team players, play well and get a win in that game and move to the next round.
A draw is fine. In the next 4 weeks city go away to united and spurs I’d expect them to drop a couple of points.
If we can beat forest , united and especially Leeds away this month (the toughest of these 3 games). Our 6 points gap with only increase.
Key week coming up, the most important thing is to not loose any players to injury in the league and FA cup games and rotate well.
I agree City will drop points
In Feb I think they got Liverpool and Newcastle away but equally we won’t win all our games
It’s how we deal with pressure
Had not checked they have l’pool and Newcastle away. Thats good news. Both those teams will be in better form by then with CL up for grabs.
As you say the lads just need to keep a level ahead. One game at a time.
They don’t have Newcastle away that fixture has been played Newcastle winning 2-1
Dan,
Not as you said as City in February play Newcastle at home not away. I quite remember in that reverse fixture you predicted City to win 4-1 but it ended Newcastle. 2-1 City.
Newcastle away from home that’s like a home to wolves these days.
Rather it’s the other way round. W2 D3 L5
Newcastle home form is terrible.
Football is perfectly fairest tonight esp as that last second Gabriels headers has not been scored. If scored it could amount to rainy day robbery whereby visibility is tainted.
some arsenal fans are so unrealistic expecting easy victory. I would have love 3 points but we’re also 6 points top of the league. Apart from Bundesliga, its tight at the top, but we are 6 points clear.
Now that the dust has settled, it should be easy to see the importance of this hard earned point in the larger scheme of things. We won’t win every game, neither will our rivals. City, as good as they are, we managed to remain ahead of them even after their best run prior to the Sunderland draw.
They then, unexpectedly drew their next 3, helping us increase the lead.
Ups and downs will happen but we should be able to enjoy the ride. Afterall it’s the unpredictability that makes sports great.
Yes, disappointing as we seem to play conservative against these big rivals. But if three weeks ago, someone said we’d be 6 points clear after Liverpool we’d be pretty happy. And looking forward we are done with Liverpool and Villa, with a game away to City and home with Chelsea and Man U, and our injury woes abating for the time being. Let’s have some perspective- still liking our prospects
Steel City, you are giving Arteta a lot of slack. Fact is we had one extra day to rest, a home game and the players and opportunity to make a statement. I was even dreaming of a 4-0 result in our favor but with D.J.Arteta at the controls it’s a drab old tune. It does seem like he is learning from previous errors.
Are you suggesting that it was Arteta’s tactics to be easily dispossessed in the second half? We couldn’t keep hold of the ball. It was dreadful. So, what do you think with DJ Arteta at the controls made this game so very different to the one against Villa?
Well not really a tactic to get dispossessed, but, the teams that have caused us problems this season Sunderland, Chelsea, Villa (@villa park), Pool have played in a certain way. They tried to press us high up with a fair degree of success.
We seem to get uneasy when teams do the high -press.
This, of course, imho.
Guys we have had da draining Xmas period where we won 5 and drew 1 …against the reigning champions!!!
We are 6 points clear. I am sure both Slot and Arteta are happy with a point and they’re looking at the bigger picture whereas we fans rightly live from match to match !
Time to rest for next week or so for our players to recover and the backups to get a chance to stake their claim for a starting place. I think Havertz will play against Port Vale and whatever some supporters think he is a valuable asset and offers different options to Gyo and Jesus
Onwards and upwards
COYG
Portsmouth.
I do not know why people are angry , this is Liverpool we are talking about not just any team and they lived up to their name especially in that second half. It’s as if every one is more interested in winning for bragging rights and social media banter than accepting a point , which isn’t bad in the general scheme of things, than a loss.
The boys gave all they could and I do not see what else they could have done. Bradly and kerkez did fantastic jobs as well as Fringpong . Arne slot couldn’t even make any changes as (imo) he didn’t want to distrupt the plan with a player that might not have the intensity and momentum as the starting 11 it was only when injuries Bradly in the last minute that forced his hand.
It is a fact that we all know here that wherever teams face arsenal they typically raise Thier game and don’t roll over, my joy is that they are doing same to Mancity as well this season thay still have to play Liverpool, Chelsea x2, and villa. While we don’t.
Drawing this match with the bad weather with a poo side that played like wounded lions isn’t bad, the result wasn’t bad at all.
It’s a shame that whenever we drop points many Arsenal fans come up to start dressing down our players and manger. We are still 6pts clear and will win the league.
COYG.
The first leg at ansfield was almost the same as in points would have been shared had it not been for that wonder free kick. Am I happy with the draw; No. Am I satisfied with the point; Yes.
Does this draw mean shitty115 will catch up and overtake us , I don’t see that happening, will we win the league, maybe. Personally I prefer assessing the team based on the performance of the day and the opposition played.
We performed well against the reigning champions , just because they didn’t have a CF and Salah doesn’t mean they weren’t at full strength, last season we were short on players ourselves and they couldn’t beat us.
EDITED
You are new here Dennis, please do better Dennis
Oh Dennis you really let yourself down, you make great adult points about the game which I completely agree with and then show yourself up as a child with the stupid shitty115 and poo💩 remarks! It’s the same with others using terms like liverfool, chelshit and man shitty, it really grinds my gears!
I agree GB, it’s very juvenile.
Calling Liverpool the 💩 is just as juvenile and cheeky and silly as calling spuds the spuds and Man U the manure. And I’m all for it. We must do that on our blogs and forums.
Our detractors call us The Arse.
If Slot and Pep put their heads together, they would make a fine arse out of themselves.
the Pep half would be the only cheek with any bum fluff.
We were dreadful, exactly the same match as we had at Anfield without the exceptional freekick.
Now I want us to go for a 4 match winning PL run.
Forest A
United H
Leeds A
Sunderland H
There are no excuses to not win 4 with our squad. Meanwhile City will play:
United A
Wolves H
Spurs A
Pool A
They simply will not get 12/12 out of those opponents so we MUST go for a winning run.
I thought we played better at Anfield than this return leg at home.
Man City won’t drop anything at Spuds, the spud fans won’t allow their team to take anything off mancy it will start a riot – spuds manager and board will get a reprieve from fans for ensuring spuds get nothing from that game. mancy might find Poo and Manure tricky, though they will have Marc Geehee shoring up their defence for those.
But are we back to being unrealistic and silly expecting Ars to breeze through fixtures at Leeds and Forest, and home to Sunderland and Man Utd? Are we demanding 12 points from all those?
Sorry I couldn’t help myself, will try to do better next time. Just trying to lighten up the mood here.
We are not playing well against the top sides in the table.
We have only won Villa at home and Man United away amongst all the top 7 teams that we have played so far.
Man United – Win
Liverpool – Lose, Draw
Man City – Draw
Sunderland – Draw
Chelsea – Draw
Aston Villa – Lose, Win
In the next 4 games we just might drop points against Man United and might also drop points against Leeds who are very good in their home.
Hopefully Man City get to drop points too against Man United, Spurs and Liverpool so we can still have a few points gap between us.
And also, Villa are still 6 points behind us and I don’t know how easy or difficult their upcoming epl fixtures are either.
I think Villa plays Newcastle/Bournemouth away, Everton/Brentford at home. Probably will drop points there as well, Newcastle and Brentford are flying and B’mouth away is always a difficult fixture.
Okay, Aston Villa might drop points in one or two of those matches too.
Arsenal needs good performances and also some element of luck to be able to win this league.
Re-watched the game (bad habit). We were poor across the board in the second half. That said, I continue to think Gyokeres is an unmitigated disaster. Watched him closely. Seems to have no insight in the box to get in the right place and get on the end of balls. When consider his base skills seem low, and his balance poor (easily pushed off), I struggle to see what he’s adding. Said it before, but can you imagine him coming on and scoring the curling goal Jesus did last week? Can hit a ball hard, good for penalties. But 20 games in, not seeing much else. If you want someone to “menace” or a “distraction” in the box” I can recommend a golden retriever. The whole point was we needed a goal scorer.
It’s not really a bad habit to re-watch games as long as you do it on your spare time.
You get a better assessment watching it again.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but Havertz needs to come back fit and strong very fast.
He knows how to position well and holds the ball better than Gyokeres.
He just does not have a good shot power and shot accuracy to score goals when he finds himself in those good positions, but he will be better than having Gyokeres up front who has not figured out how to position and create space for himself.
I think above all, we need creativeness. Our most creative player this season has been Saka with 1.9 key passes per match. That is quite bad when everyone else is way below that.
You look at the most creative players in the past 10 years in the PL, Bruno Fernandes and De Bruyne stand out averaging 3 key passes per game.
First 3 full seasons, Ödegaard got 2.1, 2.9 and 2.1 – which is a fine return. But this season he has fallen to 1.7 and you can definitely tell he’s been a shadow in the past 18 months.
Problem is that there aren’t too many CAM’s with that kind of creativeness. Arda Guler, whenever he plays CAM, can get quite close so no wonder we are often being linked with him.
There are two insanely creative players in the Russian PL: Alexey Batrakov and Eduard Spertsyan, but I don’t think we deal with Russian football clubs for transfers.
4 straight away games in 4 different competitions (Portsmouth, Chelsea, Forest and Inter Milan) until 25th January when Utd visit Emirates.
I would be fine with wins against Portsmouth and Forest, and draws with Chelsea/Inter. Not optimal but wouldn’t be the end of world losing to Inter either. Obviously that’s not my mentality but just saying, we are are quite far with the CL already but in the PL, every match must be won.
I too like the idea of prioritising the PL. the only thing we need to do in ECL is get top 8 and avoid extra play off games – and we have already done that, with All Mighty home in last game, so I would actually be little miss angry if we played a strong side in Milan, putting more time in legs and not giving rotation options more playing time.
I thought we were going to come out all guns blazing in the second half, but LP pretty much controlled the whole half.
I am not happy with the result, just glad we didn’t lose.
I disagree with you Sir, Arsenal have title winning attack too, the problem is the progression of play, too much delays and time wasting from defense to midfield with unnecessary sluggish passing ball sideways as build ups. You people should leave Gyokeres alone bcuz the midfielders and wingers have failed to form partnership with him they always cut in and shoot or squeeze it to him when they’re almost either being displaced or dispossessed of the ball. They hardly have him in mind in their build ups let’s tell the truth. Besides Gyokeres will thrive in Liverpool that doesn’t waste time discussing football matter with the ball in their half in the name of keeping possession.
We have dropped points in 6 games so far. 4 draws and 2 losses.
I believe if we are to win this league we can only afford to have 2 more draws and just 1 more loss.
Anything more than that and we will be overtaken.
So for this remaining 17 games we need 14 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.
That will give us 93 points at the end of the season and it should be enough for us to win the league.
You’re on the money. Maybe 90 be ok.
Either way we need to be better second half of season.
I have this vision of Kai Harvetz scoring a crucial goal or two. He has a world cup place for Germany to get as an added incentive after all.
If it’s 90 points we need, then we can only afford 2 more losses and 2 more draws and then hope that Man City drop points quite a lot.
While I understand the frustration of last nights result. For me if you don’t win then a draw is the next best result.
I think it unrealistic to expect the team to win every game, and any fan who thinks they will are just kidding themselves.
If you had said back in August that come January 9th 2026, Arsenal would be 6 points ahead in the League. At the top of the current Champions League group, and in the Semi-final’s of the League Cup, I think Arsenal and us as fans would have taken it.
So while again I share the frustration of last night, I am realistic enough to know we won’t be winning every game that remains this season.
Just on the matter of Martinelli’s issue regarding Liverpool’s Bradley, it wasn’t his greatest hour and he has since apologized to Bradley and issued a statement via social media.
I’d just like to give some credit here for Slot. When asked after the game he could have easily gone in on Martinelli, but to his credit he said he could understand why Martinelli did what he did. And he then said that Martinelli wasn’t aware of the severity of Bradley’s injury.
Although that said, it still didn’t look good on Martinelli’s behalf.
But to then listen to Gary Neville’s musings was bad enough. But then the biggest hypocrite of them all, a certain man by the name of Roy Keane absolutely slating Martinelli I just couldn’t take seriously.
This from a man don’t forget who waited to exact revenge on a player he had originally got injured trying to fail in the first place but got a bad injury himself from his tackle.
Some pundits seem to suffer from short term memory loss it would seem. 🤦♂️
A great post Derek and I agree 100% – perhaps that’s why it’s a great post?!
Thank you very much Ken1945,
I do have my moments, not to many but I do have them. About three a year, so that’s one out the way. Now I’ve got to wait for the next one. 🙄😂👍
I don’t think Arsenal looked like they wanted to win it in the second half, until added time. Too negative. On the face of it, not a bad result, as long as we do not live to regret it at the end of the season. Very negative from midfield and the subs did little when they came on.
That’s the simple truth we need to admit, nobody saying that Arsenal must win all their games but they can’t afford not to take or maximize opportunities that comes their way so if our closest rival drops points instead of taking advantage of it we down tools🔫 and drop points too, our consolation and gratitude is that somehow Bradley’s shot hit the crossbar. This wasn’t the approach or attitude that Liverpool had when they were topping Epl last season
That’s the simple truth we need to admit, nobody saying that Arsenal must win all their games but they can’t afford not to take or maximize opportunities that comes their way so if our closest rival drops points instead of taking advantage of it we down tools🔫 and drop points too, our consolation and gratitude is that somehow Bradley’s shot hit the crossbar. This wasn’t the approach or attitude that Liverpool had when they were topping Epl last season
The Bradley shot always looked to be dropping, and dropping in. It came as a surprise it stayed out.
On the other hand, to show the fine lines in football, if we had scored in first half or anytime, to go ahead, how would Liverpool have equalised? Their control of the game second half was based on not having to score. It’s in the first half we failed to win the game. The difference between this Arsenal side and usual title winners or promoted sides, we don’’t seem to score very many early goals. We don’t get many grip on games early on. We don’t get many two goal leads in first half hour. Taking every game alive till the last kick is the hard way to win anything.
Before the match it was reported fears associated with Storm Goretti would force the postponement of the tie. In hindsight