Gunnerblog

Arsenal 1 – 1 Liverpool: Advantage Liverpool, but still plenty to pay for

Add comment April 3rd, 2008

The following may alarm the pessimists among you:

In order to progress to the Champions League Semi-Finals, Arsenal will need to draw (or perchance even ‘Win’) a football match.

It’s certainly not beyond us.  Let’s not forget, this is the side that went to the San Siro and won 2-0.  Going to Anfield and getting a score draw or victory is no more unlikely.

Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be this way.  We completely outplayed Liverpool last night, and deserved far more than the 1-1 draw we ended up with.

The biggest crime is that we conceded within three minutes of taking the lead through Emmanuel Adebayor’s towering header. Things looked great at that stage, but just as I received a text from a pal insisting, “Great – now just don’t concede”, we conspired to do just that.  Kolo Toure let Steve Gerrard slip past him on the outside, and his cross was tapped home by a combination of Dirk Kuyt and Gael Clichy.

That seemed to throw us off our game for the rest of the first half, but just as against Bolton at the weekend, the second 45 was a completely different story.  Liverpool were pegged back in their own half, and Gerrard and Torres were completely anonymous.

Conceding an away goal was damaging, but I knew that a goal or two for us would put a sunnier disposition on the tie.  And in 99% of games, we would’ve got those two goals.  However, on this occasion, a couple of very strange events prevented us from taking a deserved lead.

First of all, Aleksandr Hleb was denied a clear penalty when the Dutch referee failed to punish a foul by his fellow countryman Kuyt.  Then, in a bizarre piece of ill-fortune, Nicklas Bendtner failed to get out of the way of a goalbound effort from Cesc Fabregas.

So Liverpool clung on, and have the advantage of knowing a 0-0 shutout at Anfield will take them through.  We, on the other hand, know that we must score at their place, or face exit from the competition.  It should make for an enthralling second leg.The result last night wasn’t ideal.  But the performance illustrated how much we can dominate them when the mood takes us.  There’s plenty of reason to be hopeful, especially ahead of Saturday’s Premier League tie.

That’s where we must focus our attention now.  The title is still glimmering on the horizon, and it would be a disaster to let last night’s set-back allow it to disappear.