Derbies come in two main flavours: ridiculous fun and muscular ‘not for the neutrals’ melees. Guess which this was.
Both sides were as bad as each other for their missed opportunities: Kai Havertz and young buck Nicolas Jackson both had goals ruled out for offside, while Malo Gusto and Noni Madueke’s headers over the bar were balanced out by Leandro Trossard blazing over late on with Robert Sanchez stranded and a line of Arsenal players proving unable to slide home an inviting ball across the face of goal on the final kick of the game.
Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka have both been one-man wrecking crews for their sides in plenty of games over the past year or so, but neither were anywhere near the peaks of their powers here: both were kept quiet, yes, but were unconvincing on the rare occasions they were able to get the ball in the places they each like to have it.
Come the end of the season, a point away to Chelsea will probably look perfectly respectable for any side. But the expectations placed on Arsenal this season have made it so that every time they have dropped points this season, it has felt like more of a failure for them than the opposition. With the amount of making up they have to do on league leaders Liverpool already – nine points, now – that pain of yet another kick in the balls was palpable yet again here.
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It will come as particular frustration that, once again, this point earned was also two dropped from a winning position. Liverpool have had nine leads and taken nine wins this season; Arsenal have also had nine leads and won five, with the other four ending all square, including the 2-2 draw against Arne Slot’s side. That accounts for much of the difference between the two in the league table.
There was a silver lining for Arsenal in the return of Martin Odegaard. Injuries are a fact of life in football, yet every set of fans are convinced their club is the only one ever to suffer from them, making them the ideal get-out clause for periods of underwhelming form. “It wasn’t our fault, we have injuries.” Yes lads. That’s why everyone has a squad.
But there are some absences so monumental that they stand as rare instances of a dog actually having scarfed down an excellent piece of punctually-produced homework. Among Manchester City’s lengthy list at the moment, Rodri towers above the rest. And for Arsenal, plagued with a perfectly ordinary rotating set of injured players, it has been Odegaard.
Arsenal’s rise to prominence has been built on supplementing their grit and willingness to get down and dirty with genuine class and guile. Those latter ingredients have been missing over the past month or so, and results have suffered for it.
There is plenty that Mikel Arteta’s side could have done better while Odegaard has been out. They coped well enough against Tottenham, Manchester City, Leicester and Southampton without him before entering their recent wobble.
But in a game filled with physicality and running and blood and not a huge amount of actual quality – a familiar state of affairs for Arsenal lately – it was left to the Norwegian to find that incisive opening on the hour, curling a lovely cross to the back post that Bukayo Saka left for Gabriel Martinelli to pick up and fire (much too easily) past Sanchez at the near post.
If Kai Havertz had been able to reach Mikel Merino’s knocked-down header four minutes after Pedro Neto had restored parity with a wonderfully-struck equaliser, Odegaard may have provided the winner, too.
That’s not how the story went, of course, and it’s unfortunate for Arsenal that they have had this underwhelming little spell just before Manchester City embarked on one of their own. It’s insanely early to be calling a title race, so we make no pretence of doing so here – but as it stands it looks like Liverpool’s to lose until given a reason to think otherwise.
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