It finished 2-2. Twice Arsenal had the lead and twice Liverpool pegged them back. By the end, Arsenal had a back four that contained not a single first-choice element in its usual place and yet had still seemed oddly untested late on. Set it out like that and it sounds like a madcap thriller and yet, somehow, it all felt slightly flat.
Arsenal even had what many in the ground celebrated as an injury-time winner ruled out, although it turned out the referee Anthony Taylor had already blown for a foul by Jakub Kiwior, something that really should have been obvious from Gabriel Jesus’s body language as he poked the ball over the line. This is Arsenal, and so there had to be a conspiracy theory, which beyond the incontrovertible fact that Taylor is from Greater Manchester (like, you know, Manchester City: coincidence? Really?), seemed to focus on the fact that the referee had paused momentarily before giving a fairly straightforward decision. Waiting to see if there might be an advantage? Or getting his orders from the shadowy anti-Arsenal forces that run the game?
While the persecution complex of some Arsenal fans is easy to mock, it is true that after a long spell of being fairly fortunate with injuries, they are now experiencing the regression to the mean. That William Saliba was suspended following his red card at Bournemouth last week was self-inflicted, but losing Gabriel and Jurriën Timber to injuries sustained during the game while already without Riccardo Calafiori and Takehiro Tomiyasu was deeply unfortunate: a back four of Thomas Partey, Ben White, Kiwior and Myles Lewis-Skelly is not what anybody envisaged.
That’s enough to scramble any mind, particularly when their captain Martin Ødegaard remains absent and Bukayo Saka, superb on his return from injury, was always likely have to be withdrawn before the end. Arsenal have been guilty of dancing with doom, focusing always on the frustration of the refereeing decisions that go against them and the players who are not available, but in this instance they were unfortunate with injuries. Perhaps they could have done something differently to see out the final quarter-hour plus injury-time, but if Trent Alexander-Arnold measures a pass behind your 18-year-old full-back with such precision and Darwin Núñez then, for once, takes the right option to tee up Mohamed Salah, there’s not a huge amount for Arsenal to reproach themselves for.
The surprise, in fact, is that Liverpool were unable to apply more pressure having equalised. It was Arsenal who threatened, which leads inevitably, if perhaps not entirely fairly, to the thought that their response to the injuries was too cautious. Arne Slot, clearly, was frustrated and protested about Arsenal’s time-wasting, but at 2-2 he showed no inclination to gamble.
But these are not gamblers. Football is at a curious point in its on-field evolution. For years, the game has been getting more attacking. Improvements in pitches and tweaks to the laws have encouraged passing play and possession football. Sitting in and spoiling from the off is very unusual these days. Last season we saw a Premier League record 3.20 goals per game. This season, the average is 2.90, which is still historically extremely high. But the very elite are always slightly ahead, leading the evolution. Before 2008 there was only one season in which goals-per-game in the knockout stages of the Champions League was over 3.00. From 2008-09 to 2019-20, there was only one season in which it fell below 3.00. But it’s been below 3.00 in each of the last four seasons.
It is true that the last three of those coincide with Uefa competition abandoning the away goals rule, but the trend pre-dates that. Jürgen Klopp, in fact, suggested in 2019 that with everybody focusing on attack, it was in improving defence that competitive advantages were to be found. Slot and Mikel Arteta are coaches of this new caution.
There were, of course, still four goals at the Emirates on Sunday, much higher than the Premier League average. But this was a typical game of modern elite football. Arsenal had the best defensive record in the Premier League last season, Liverpool have the best this time around. Neither Arteta nor Slot are instinctively defensive in the manner of, say, José Mourinho or Antonio Conte – although, as he showed in the draw at City, Arteta has his moments. But both have a risk-averse approach to possession. They’re not like Klopp, urging their teams to get the ball forward at every opportunity, to roll the dice constantly. They want control, to dominate games by denying the opposition. Possession, or at least possession in dangerous areas. It’s the logical way for football, after its harum-scarum years, to go. And the result is games like this: matches that seem to have all the ingredients of a thriller, but somehow don’t feel that thrilling.
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On this day …
On 28 October 1865, Arthur Wharton was born in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) to a wealthy family. His father was a Grenadian minister with Scottish and west African heritage, while his mother was Fante royalty. When he was 17, he moved to England to train to be a Methodist minister and, alongside his studies, he proved an exceptional sportsman. In 1886, at the Amateur Athletic Association Championships, he won the 100 yards in a time of 10 seconds, equalling the world record. He was also an excellent cyclist and played cricket and football, keeping goal for Darlington and then, in 1886-87, Preston North End.
He had moved on before the league was established, though, preferring to concentrate on his running, and so missed Preston’s unbeaten double in 1888-89, joining Rotherham in 1889 and so becoming the first Black professional footballer in history. He subsequently played for Sheffield United and Stockport, while coaching Stalybridge Rovers, for whom he signed Herbert Chapman, who as a manager would win the league with Huddersfield and Arsenal. When his career came to an end, he found work in a colliery. Struggling with alcoholism, he died in penury in 1930.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email [email protected], and he’ll answer the best in a future edition