So that’s about us. Thanks for your company and comments, sorry I couldn’t get to them all; stay strong through international fortnight.
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But let’s try, eh? Arsenal went into that game as though they’d never seen Liverpool play, played like they’ve never played themselves and never wanted to play themselves, so took the pasting Liverpool earned than they deserved. It is now acceptable to talk of league tables, so Liverpool are second, Arsenal 16th.
Full-time: Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal
I don’t think I have words to add to that.
90+3 min In dark times, laugh at the misfortune of someone else; at Wembley, Burnley have scored a last-minute equaliser. However bad Arsenal get, they’ll always have Spurs.
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90+2 min Gary Neville gives man of the match to Salah, not Can. Fair either way.
90+1 min Salah finds himself running at Holding again; it’s just bullying now. And with the defender expecting him to come inside, he instead lashes a shot with Cech tips over. The corner comes to nowt.
90 min There shall be three added minutes.
90 min It’s impossible to understate how good Arsenal have been today.
89 min Arsenal win a free-kick on the left which Ozil curls in; Giroud is up first but gets underneath it and hairstyles well over the top.
87 min “’Koscielny, Holding and pals’” tweets Hubert O’Hearn, quoting me back to myself. “Are we sure they’re pals? They play like they’ve only just met one another.”
That’s the thing with Arsenal; they fall in love quickly and out of love slowly.
87 min Karius launches himself at a corner and punches clear! Wahey!
85 min “One recent escapee who might be looking back at Arsenal and thinking he’d dodged a few bullets is Gabriel Paulista,” emails Charles Antaki. “On the other hand, he’s facing Real Madrid away tonight.”
I thought you’d never ask! Join me for live MBM coverage, from 8.15BST! Gabriel is yet another failed central-defensive purchase from Arsene Wenger; in 21 years at Arsenal, is Sol Campbell, an no-brainer, his only unqualified success?
83 min Sky catch Sanchez sniggering on the Arsenal bench; time for all the body language experts to decide what that means, when for all they know David Ospina has just let one rip.
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81 min Welbeck finds Xhaka - not a bad effort, 80 minutes hiding in plain sight - and he snatches at a shot which skids wide.
80 min Off goes Firmino, on comes Milner.
GOAL! Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal (Sturridge 78)
This is another lovely goal. Gomez starts the move on the right touchline and the ball moves infield to Firmino and then Can, who’s been excellent. He eventually finds Salah outside him, and a measured, studied cross picks out the path of Sturridge at the back post. Even so, there’s plenty of work to do, and he does brilliantly to catch up with it, crane his neck, and guide a header into the net.
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77 min Arsenal get the ball in the Liverpool half but Welbeck slows down the play and they can’t recapture the pace.
75 min “I’m not always a big Hendorson fan - lots of energy, often erratic,” says Richard McGahey. “But he has been great today. Constantly moving into good positions filling spaces intelligently and super-aggressive on the ball.”
Agreed, he has played well, though in circumstances unfeasibly conducive to the same. He’s a good player, just not an elite player; no shame in that.
74 min Change for Liverpool: off goes Mane, and on comes Sturridge to score the seventh. I doubt Koscielny, Holding and pals will welcome that adjustment.
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73 min Holding ploughs through Henderson before he can get away from him and is booked.
70 min Liverpool’s pressing is far too much for Arsenal’s back-however many. This time, Salah dips infield and flips a ball in behind; Holding allows it to bounce, because ... well your guess is as good as mine. Mane charges through him, tries to clip a finish over Cech, who gets a touch, and Bellerin slides off the line.
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69 min Welbeck pulls right and knocks back for Ozil on the edge of the box. He flights a corss towards the back post, where Giroud and Lacazette gather, the presence of the former allowing the latter to side-foot a volley just wide.
68 min “I’d like to see you try this not naming the referee game when Mike Dean was officiating,” emails JR. “He’d find out and you’d be in for a major league upbraiding.”
If it came complete with gesticulations, my work on this planet would be complete.
67 min Liverpool have slowed a little. I’d still expect them score again, mind, closer to the end once Arsenal are demoralised yet further.
65 min Karius botches another kick. A footballer, required to impart foot to ball; who could possibly have anticipated such shocking requirement.
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64 min “Ironically named footballers?” tweets booboo_76. “You forgot Dennis Wise.”
The man who started the kids on laps of honour nonsense. He deserves our displeasure for that alone.
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63 min Sanchez does not look at all happy, whether with his role in this shower or the notion of drowning under it for a full nother season.
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62 min Wenger is going for the concede nine option. Off go Sanchez and Oxlade-Chamberlain - will either play for Arsenal again? - and on come Giroud and Lacazette. That’ll sort the midfield imbalance.
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61 min “Re Melo, Bravo ironic names,” emails Joseph Bradfield, “the term for that is nominative contradeterminism - the frequently injured Danny Invincibile is my favourite of the genre.”
Surely that depends on the intention of the namer?
59 min It’s as though Arsenal have never seen Liverpool play before. “His team could score and get back in it, they could concede nine,” says Neville.
GOAL! Liverpool 3-0 Arsenal (Salah, 57)
Arsenal are horrendous, horrific, awful and appalling. They narrowly avoid being countered and win a corner, which is headed clear; naturally, Bellerin decides to be cunning and nip away from Salah just as his mate Monreal did to such wondrous effect a few minutes ago. Salah powers through him, screeches clear, leans right, slides his finish left, and that is that.
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55 min Monreal cunningly elects to skip inside Salah, who dispossesses him and races towards goal. He moves the ball on to Henderson, who lamps over the top.
54 min The corner comes to nowt and Arsenal contrive a break, Moreno doing well to track down Oxlade-Chamberlain and concede a throw.
53 min Holding cedes an unnecessary free-kick 25 yards from goal and not far from the corner of the box. Salah gently curls it in and Can hairgels just wide; naturally, He Who Should Not Be Noticed awards a corner.
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52 min Elsewhere, Dele Alli has put Spurs ahead at Wembley, where they’re entertaining Burnley.
50 min Matip rolls Karius the ball for no reason and Welbeck charges in to close him down; of course, the Biberach an der Riss Messi tries to dribble his way out of it, makes a mess instead, and does well to escape further embarrassment.
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49 min Arsenal are playing with some snap now. Oh my! Now I’ve seen it all! Ozil slides in for a ball he can’t hope to win, boots Henderson up in the air, and is booked! Maybe Arsene’s fury isn’t quite as Biggus Dickus as I’d imagined.
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47 min Arsenal are playing 4-3-3 now. That should help, because they’ve been monstered out wide.
46 min Aha! The lesser-spotted Ozil, now playing behind Welbeck, picks up a second ball outside the box, left of centre, and drags a shot wide of the far post.
46 min Off we toddle once more. Arsenal make one change: Coquelin for Ramsey.
“Just saw your entry at 1 minute re Kim Novak,” emails Patrick Crumlish. “RTÉ 1 in Ireland are showing Vertigo as we speak. Some film. About a man who really should learn from the past but seems obsessed and unable to change his ways. It all ends in tragedy. No relevance to events at Anfield. No sirree.”
Heh! I love Vertigo. Lessons for eternity.
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Henry, who definitely never played in a side which went in at half-time 5-1 down, is also vex. He reckons Ramsey is a number 10; not sure about that, because he has an incredible engine, but he might need two men alongside him.
In the studio, Souness is on one. “This beggars belief ... you just don’t know what messages they’re getting told.”
Half-time email: “Following on from your Ser Loris comment,” says Ronan Heffernan, “I’ve always hoped Aaron Ramsey would finish his career in the lower divisions in the north-west. Perhaps the headline would simply read ‘Ramsey, Bolton’.”
By the looks of things, Arsenal’s strategy has been conceived by John Snow.
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Half-time reading: here’s a column, written by, er, me, on Neymar, Coutinho, Van Dijk, Rose, and why footballers should be allowed to play for whoever they want.
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Half-time: Liverpool 2-0 Arsenal
Gosh, that was something; Liverpool have been great, Arsenal have been tame, idle, pathetic and imbecilic. I hope Arsene Wenger is furious; gosh, I’d absolutely love to spectate on Arsene Wenger being furious.
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45+2 min “Welbeck, who has worked hard it must be said...” No further questions, yer honour.
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45+2 min “It’s not slang, it’s literally a bedbug that bites and bothers you, but otherwise is not dangerous,” emails Dmitry Tuzoff. “A proper name for a Liverpool manager, indeed, at least from a United point of view.”
I take it you don’t remember the 80s. Lucky, lucky you.
45 min There shall be two added minutes, ironically, two more than the mark out of ten you’d give Arsenal for this first-half submission.
44 min “Question:” colons Matt Loten. “Is Wenger so myopic that he genuinely believes he is setting up his defence in the best manner to win games; is he convinced that his forwards, with the addition of Lacazette, are capable of masking the defensive frailties; or does he just not care anymore, and is happy to do just enough to win his next two-year contract? Or, bonus choice, does he have a personal grudge against Gary Neville and is attempting to induce a rage-fuelled cardiac arrest?”
I’m sure he cares; he’s an arch competitor. I even thought he’d remembered what a good team looks like, given the pace, power and movement he’s added lately. But he doesn’t seem able to pick the right team for the right game often enough, nor instil the concentration and lunacy that you need to succeed over a season.
42 min “Arsenal deserve battering,” says Gary Neville; if he nips back to the studio, he might find Souness and Henry keen to help with that one.
GOAL! Liverpool 2-0 Arsenal (Mane 40)
Arsenal didn’t deserve to get to half-time just one behind, and they don’t. They lose the ball on the edge of the Liverpool box, Liverpool streak forward, and Firmino sends Mane away at inside-left. Holding, who finds himself responsible for defending the situation - an invidious imposition - knows he’s cutting inside just as Cech knows he’s ramming a low shot towards the far corner. It makes no difference. He cuts inside, rams a low shot towards the far corner, and that’s a goal in each league game so far for yerman.
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39 min Bellerin and Welbeck craft space down the Arsenal left but Loveren inserts himself between man and ball, winning a free-kick in the process.
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38 min In commentary, Neville and Tyler wonder how many changes Wenger make at half-time; it feels cruel to snark about one of football’s great menschen, but if he’s not subbing himself, it really doesn’t matter.
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37 min “Apparently Klopp is Russian slang for bedbug,” tweets Peter Gowing.
A thing which bites, or a thing which eavesdrops? Anyone know who we might ask?
35 min Liverpool are absolutely stomping over Arsenal in midfield, Wijnaldum dipping inside and outside in centrefield with lovely skill and composure. He can’t make anything of it, but the passage underlined the gulf between the teams.
34 min Oh dear Arsenal. Bellerin tries to break so Henderson powers through him, Koscielny waves a foot at the ensuing cross, misses, and after Ramsey intercedes and runs the ball back towards his own goal, Xhaka tries to find Cech with a backheel. This is footballing tragicomedy.
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32 min Henderson tosses a cross into the box which Holding and Wijnaldum contest; the ball breaks to the edge, and of course it’s a red shirt hurrying to it, Mane thunking a volley wide.
31 min A quiet period. Arsenal will have expected this, because the pace at which Liverpool always start isn’t sustainable; but it doesn’t look like they’re set to take advantage.
29 min If Oxlade-Chamberlain really wants to leave Arsenal - and presumably Wenger knows either way - I really don’t grasp why he’d play today, in a role which demands discipline and focus. Not because he’ll loz it off, but because if he’s mentally checked out, the best will in the world won’t check him back in.
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27 min “Each time these two teams play recently, I’m secretly hoping for a scrappy midfield contest,” emails Matt Dony,” gifting us the potentially magnificent commentary of, ‘Xhaka, Can, Xhaka, Can...’”
Tangentially, in Hebrew, “Moreno” translates as “our teacher”, putting him in an august group of ironically-named footballers along with Felipe Melo, Mark Noble and Claudio Bravo.
25 min But here’s the thing: Arsenal are clueless. A long ball sets Salah at Monreal again and amazingly, Monreal, a left-back playing at centre-back, has no idea what to do. Salah cuts inside him, shoots low, and Cech shovels away.
25 min Arsenal have done well to only be 1-0 behind, and miserably as they’ve played, Liverpool’s defence has already offered plenty of encouragement.
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24 min Arsenal have improved a little, Ramsey tricking his way down the left touchline and drawing a foul from Gomez, who’s booked.
22 min Welbeck runs to cut off Moreno as he clears, tickles him in the process, and is booked for no reason. Which reminds me, amid earlier kerfuffle just after Liverpool scored, Lovren was booked for a foul.
20 min Karius - whose dressing room nickname is surely Ser Loris - botches a kick. Of course he does. Arsenal can’t take advantage. Of course they can’t.
19 min Henderson dashes in to rob Ramsey, who stands about as you do; he charges on, collects Firmino’s return pass which puts him in, but can’t dink home from a tight angle. “I’m fuming,” says Gary Nev.
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19 min “They can dizguzt you at times, Arsenal” says Gary Nev, and he’s right. Well as Liverpool are playing, this is pathetic.
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GOAL! Liverpool 1-0 Arsenal (Firmino 17)
That was so coming it was ridiculous. This time, Liverpool stretch Arsenal down the right, Xhaka dawdling on the touchline. Gomez catches him then moves the ball inside to Can who feeds it back to him - he is bossing this game at the moment. The ensuing cross is perfection, Firmino glances it down and across, and there we are.
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16 min Another one-two down the Liverpool left and this time it’s Oxlade-Chamberlain not mithered to compete. Mane’s cross is deflected behind, and from the corner Lovren might’ve done better than head over the top.
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16 min Arsenal are not remotely in this game at the moment.
14 min “This surely was an ‘expected goal’ for Salah, wasn’t it?” asks Marc on Twitter. Or a chance as we once called it, information gleaned either from a graph, from a map or from watching the game.
12 min Gary Neville is eviscerating Ozil and Ramsey for not tracking runners in the lead-up to that cross; indeed.
10 min Oh my days what a save! Oh my days what a miss! Can exchanges passes with Firmino and caresses a cross to the back post, finding the feet of Salah four yards from goal. He could fart this in, but somehow picks out Cech, diving back across his goal from the other side.
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10 min Lovely idea from Can, lifting a pass from centre to right, over the Arsenal defence for Salah; that’s a nice run. But the ball is overhit, drifting behind.
9 min Arsenal are sitting deep and narrow when Liverpool have the ball, which makes sense; Mane wants to come inside and Salah wants to get in on goal.
7 min There we go. Welbeck does really well on halfway, disturbing Henderson and setting Sanchez away. The two of them burrow forward, and when the return pass comes, Welbeck is goal-side of Gomez. Gomez then does well to lean into his man, but even so, Welbeck ought to do better than lean back and scoop the ball over the top. Of course he ought; of course he can’t.
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6 min Koscielny flies out to head clear, gets a little nudge off Firmino, and Salah dashes into the space behind Monreal. His cross, though, is overhit, and when Mane retrieves it, Can heads over the top. Still, decent pressure from Liverpool.
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4 min It’ll be interesting to see how Granit Xhaka does today. When he plays well, Arsenal are likely to, but Wenger singled him out for grief last week and Liverpool’s pressing might also disturb his equilibrium.
3 min As you’d expect from a side who played so well in midweek, Liverpool have started confidently, knocking the ball around at pace. Arsenal are charging around too, though, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ramsey almost passing their way into a threatening position.
2 min “This match is, of course, going to end badly for one team or other,” prophesises Charles Ataki. “You might say that of any match, but there’s something about the pent-up angst on both sides that suggests, far more than say a Watford-WBA or even a Man United-Man City, that suggests a water-filled ballon dangling precariously over a pin. There will surely be tears before bedtime.”
We can but hope.
1 min Anfield’s new camera angle is vertiginous, and not in a Kim Novak kind of way.
1 min Away we go!
Campaign against solo perambulation has finished its latest effort. We’re good to go.
Tell you what, those new Sky player pics are the absolute business.
The boys march towards the baize. Both teams are wearing tracky tops. Oh.
As Omar Little might’ve said: “Indeed.”
A left back on the pitch. A left back on the bench. An international left back not in the squad. A right midfielder selected at left back
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) August 27, 2017
“I think a good season for both of these clubs would be proving that they have married a more convincing defensive game plan to their undoubted attacking qualities,” reckons Matt Loten. “Some say that ‘defences win titles’ is nothing more than a cliché, and to a degree they are right, but no one has yet convinced me that title-winning teams are not at least capable of defending with the best of them. Competent defending does not equal a lack of invention in the final third and vice-versa. Liverpool and Arsenal will score hatfuls this season, but United and Tottenham will score plenty whilst also keeping them out, and they will finish higher in the table because of it.”
Yep, that’s definitely part of it. I also think that the two teams you mention know exactly what they’re doing - one up on Arsenal - and have elite attacking players - one up on Liverpool.
“The one thing that’s even better than mass on-pitch violence,” virtue-signals Kari Tulinius, “is when an animal runs onto the field and assorted stewards and players run around trying to catch it”.
That is very good, or at least was until said animals were immediately furnished with their own Twitter accounts by hilarious funsters before so much as eluding their first steward.
Summary
“Were Arsenal really all that happy at the end of the season, even having the Cup win?” asks David Wall. “I thought they were grinding their teeth over the failure to qualify for the Champions’ League. And if Everton’s non-performance following an away European tie in midweek is any guide to how the Thursday -Saturday routine might affect Arsenal this season too (especially as they have less experience of that schedule), then it’ll be increasingly hard for them to finish higher this season than last. Might Wenger’s last couple of years at the club see them having to focus increasingly on cups, and give up even any lame pretence of challenging for the title (as Mourinho admitted for United in the second part of the season last year)?”
I can’t see Arsenal winning another title under Wenger, and ultimately, the moments and madness which stays with you, with which you bore
your kids and grandkids
anyone prepared to speak to you, generally relate to winning stuff not qualifying for stuff.
Graeme Souness does not think Klopp is rolling straight dice on Mignolet. He’s not rubbing his thighs quite yet, but an error or two and we may reach peak Gattuso-Jordan territory.
Mignolet is rested, says Klopp, after standing on his line musing about life for a few games in a row just before international week. Yeah, just.
Lacazette “is still in a patient phase”, says Wenger. It’s hard not to translate that as “will beef least if he’s left out”. He also notes that Ozil, Sanchez and Welbeck did well at the end of last season.
Email! “Am I the only one looking forward to the possible comedy defending that may happen in todays game?”
Absolutely not; for all the devastating brilliance that football brings, mass on-pitch violence is the only thing better than comedy defending, amirite?
I might be missing something, and let me know if so, but until such point consider the above dogma.
What would constitute a good season for these two teams? I can’t see either of them winning the title; I can’t see either challenging. Liverpool need to win something, anything, partly because it’s far more meaningful for supporters than qualifying to not win another competition, but also because players need to know that they can. Very few start success with a league title.
Arsenal, meanwhile, are in a bind. They might sneak into the top four again, but to what end? If I was them, which I’m not, I’d be wanting the Uefa Cup.
People walking.
Our team in text: Cech, Holding, Koscielny, Monreal, Bellerin, Ramsey, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Welbeck, Alexis#LFCvAFC pic.twitter.com/wPrHWBtOVF
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) August 27, 2017
While we wait, two on-point Joys of Six.
So let’s have a closer look at those teams, then. Liverpool leave out Mignolet altogether; would it really have been beyond them to get Pickford or Butland? At right-back, Gomez continues after replacing Alexander-Arnold in midweek and the rest of the team is as expected, which is to say that Mane had better play well.
Arsenal, meanwhile, prefer the running about of Welbeck to the goalscoring of Lacazette. I wonder about that, not because Welbeck doesn’t have other qualities - his movement and link-up play for example - but because if the returning Sanchez doesn’t score, who else is going to?
Otherwise, Koscielny is back which will help them in defence, while Oxlade-Chamberlain’s x-factor - or xxxx-factor, depending - is thought to be of more use than Kolasinac’s expertise.
Gorgeous Guys and Hunksome Heroes
Liverpool (a wacky mettlar’s 4-3-3): Karius; Gomez, Lovren, Matip, Moreno; Henderson, Emre Can, Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Mané. Subs: Ward, Klavan, Alexander-Arnold, Grujic, Milner, Solanke, Sturridge.
Arsenal (a desperately unoriginal 3-4-2-1): Cech; Holding, Koscielny, Monreal; Bellerin, Ramsey, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Ozil, Sanchez; Welbeck. Subs: Ospina, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Coquelin, Walcott, Lacazette Giroud.
Person we oughtn’t to notice:
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Preamble
Afternoon all and how was your “summer”? Now, those inverted commas could disguise no chat as ironic weather chat, or even no chat as tell me about yourself while I don’t listen, can’t believe you didn’t look away like I did chat, but in fact represent a genuine inquiry as to your footballing equilibrium. Did you swoop or double-swoop? Flash your war chest or your community chest? Act like Uranus or ... well ... granted it can be hard to know the difference sometimes. But that’s FOOTBALLTM innit, all about the fine margins.
At the end of last season – and amazingly – both Liverpool and Arsenal were happy. The former skated into the Champions League by virtue of some fast, aggressive, cohesive football, and the latter dredged up their best performance in a generation to win the Cup a ruin a hated rival’s Double. Thereafter, they simply needed to sod off on holiday and sip platinum piña coladas before coming back to, er, go again.
Easier said then done; if you can’t drop 100,000,000 cola bottles on an alright centre-back from Southampton and a barely proven midfielder from Leipzig; if you can only drop half that on a half-decent striker no one fully decent wanted, you’re nothing. And just like that ... actual, meaningful achievement, apparently gone.
But that’s not really the full story, even less so when your rivals simply identify problem areas and address them. Jurgen Klopp couldn’t find a single centre-back in the world better than those he already has and equal to that alright one at Southampton; he couldn’t fathom a midfielder the equal of the great Naby Keita; and he has no need whatsoever for a coach who understands defending.
Similarly, Arsene Wenger can put seven at the back and his teams will still be dodgy; he can mess about with his midfield and his teams will still be flighty; and as long as he tolerates less than the best, he won’t win the league; so here we are.
Kick-off: 4pm British “Summer” Time
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