Arsenal committed the fatal mistake of making Liverpool angry and, with it, potentially handed the advantage in the Premier League title race to Manchester City.

 Edited by| Paul Mitchel

Sports section -  CJ journalist

Anfield – April,9,2023

Mikel Arteta’s side stretched their lead at the top to six points but having played a game more and with away fixtures at City and Newcastle United to come it feels they have let a significant opportunity slip away from them.

Having been 2-0 up inside half an hour through goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus and utterly dominant against Liverpool who were frankly shambolic in defense they were ultimately fortunate to escape Anfield with a point.

Mohamed Salah will be haunted by his penalty miss, his second successive failure from the spot for Liverpool, while Arteta will rue how Arsenal alarmingly surrendered control.

Having praised Arsenal as worthy successors to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool this was not the performance, once they conceded of mentality monsters. How they were indebted, in the end, to goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.

The turning point was not Salah’s goal before half-time – and he could have won it in injury time when he volleyed over and then was brilliantly denied by Ramsdale – but an incident in which Granit Xhaka needlessly clashed with Trent Alexander-Arnold.

It infuriated the Liverpool players, whose blood was up and riled the home fans. It switched the momentum with Liverpool running on emotion and fury and Arsenal could barely able to cope as they were overwhelmed.

It was not the only clash with an extraordinary moment after the half-time whistle when Andrew Robertson was booked for abusing referee Paul Tierney having claimed he had been elbowed by assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis. Replays showed the official did lift his elbow into Robertson’s face and the PGMOL – the referee’s body – will investigate.

To their credit, Liverpool never relented and gained the equalizing goal, which was the least they deserved, when substitute Roberto Firmino headed home late on.

{source}<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4474625449481215"
crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<!-- moss test ad -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-4474625449481215"
data-ad-slot="6499882985"
data-ad-format="auto"
data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>{/source}