Arsenal do not start playing until they are behind. Theirs has been a wacky, impossible-to-fathom brand of football in recent weeks and a sprint through the emotions seemingly comes as standard during their matches. Jeered off at half-time, Arsène Wenger’s players won back their home crowd with a stirring fightback that had Liverpool clinging on for a point at the final whistle.

For Liverpool, this had threatened to be a landmark victory, a first triumph over a team in the top half of the Premier League table and a balm for the horror of Sunday’s FA Cup exit at League One Oldham Athletic. Two goals to the good, thanks to a combination of assured finishing and shocking Arsenal defending, Brendan Rodgers sensed a touchstone. His scathing critique of his young players at Oldham had been felt by the dressing-room. The response shaped up in positive fashion.

This was the fifth time in succession that Arsenal had trailed in the league and yet they hauled themselves in dramatic fashion, with goals from Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott. They went agonisingly close to the winner that would have sparked a frenzy, although the defending of the substitute André Santos meant that Liverpool almost snatched it.

For Arsenal, the talk of the lack of January signings – and the prospect that nobody will arrive before the deadline – gave way to 90 minutes of adrenaline. Several of their players slumped to the turf at the final whistle. Despite everything, it felt like an opportunity missed.

It is that time of the season when the margins have become finer and for these teams, who have been infuriatingly inconsistent, this fixture felt like a six-pointer in the fight for a Champions League finish. Liverpool entered it the angrier, after the humiliation at Oldham, but the early lead that they took owed everything to a catalogue of Arsenal blunders that had Wenger steaming in his sleeping bag coat.

He would not have enjoyed seeing such errors over the course of the game, let alone jammed into a matter of seconds. The first mistake, ironically, was Liverpool’s, when Suárez miskicked as he sought to find the overlapping Glen Johnson. But Bacary Sagna trumped that when he fell over to allow the full-back through after all.

Johnson crossed, Thomas Vermaelen made a hash of the attempted clearance and Daniel Sturridge forced Wojciech Szczesny to save. Aaron Ramsey, though, still could not clear and when Jordan Henderson passed to Suárez, his shot deflected past Szczesny. The arrival of the Keystone Cops would have completed the scene; André Santos did not arrive until the 37th minute, as a replacement for the injured Kieran Gibbs.

The first half was wild, open and unpredictable. Panic bubbled beneath the surface. As a spectacle, it was gripping. Szczesny summed things up when he attempted to fox Sturridge with a Cruyff-turn on his own six-yard line, except that the Arsenal goalkeeper got it wrong and only a desperate foot-in spared him from an impossible explanation.

Suárez was a menace; Liverpool looked dangerous on the counter, with Arsenal exposed. Yet the home team had their first-half chances. When they pressed on to the front foot and harnessed the vision of Jack Wilshere and the pace of Theo Walcott, they sparked anxiety in Liverpool ranks.Walcott almost equalised immediately when he took Wilshere’s ball and forced Pepe Reina to save; Olivier Giroud flickered and Walcott, again, drew the Liverpool goalkeeper into a stop, this one a full-length dive, after Daniel Agger’s brave challenge had halted Vermaelen.

Liverpool had three presentable chances in the first half. Sturridge, released by Suárez’s crossfield ball, shot wastefully; Agger had a thumping header from Steven Gerrard’s corner cleared off the line by Lukas Podolski and Henderson, played through by Stewart Downing, found Szczesny out to meet him. Henderson checked, flighted a chip from 30 yards and saw it drift just over the empty net. Szczesny seemed intent on confirming his maverick status.

Liverpool’s travelling fans had unfurled pre-match banners in protest at the £62 ticket prices but it was tempting to wonder whether the entertainment value made it worth it. The Arsenal support booed their team at the interval.

It would get worse for them before it got better, in the shape of further comic defensive cuts. Henderson, in form and preferred to Joe Allen, did not appear the favourite to power in between Per Mertesacker and Santos but he did just that and he would argue that he earned the luck that followed.

Ramsey’s tackle on him saw the ball canon off Santos and wrong-foot Szczesny. Henderson read the situation and rolled into the empty net.

Liverpool had seen strong penalty appeals for handball against Vermaelen rejected on 50 minutes and yet, in breathless fashion, Arsenal rallied. In the space of five minutes, they not only restored parity, they were within a whisker of leading. Giroud’s header from Wilshere’s free-kick and Walcott’s thumping finish, after slick build-up and Giroud’s cushioned lay-off, rocked Liverpool and Walcott nearly floored them when he cracked just wide of the far post.

Rodgers swapped Sturridge for José Enrique, a defensive change, as Liverpool sought to dig in. But Arsenal swept forward. Santi Cazorla and Giroud, twice, went close before Suárez almost punished Santos. The drama was unrelenting.

A news article on 2013-01-30 21:57:00 from: The Guardian

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