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I’m not going to complain about a point at Arsenal. I don’t think we played well and it’s frustrating not to have been able to hold on having got our noses in front, but so far this season we’ve drawn with City, Chelsea and Arsenal and we’ve beaten everyone else. Can’t really ask for more than that, surely? It’s hard to be completely objective about these things because of how much Man City have completely skewed everything, the financial doping cheating twats. They’ve artificially set the bar so high that any point dropped feels like it might be catastrophic in terms of the title. I mean, since when is a draw at Arsenal a bad result? The answer is never, yet it almost feels that way, especially because City have already won there. They played Arsenal at the right time, before they’d fully adjusted to what Emery wants from them. The Gunners look much stronger now. They’re certainly much better without the ball than we’ve become used to. I still feel as though we’d have battered them if we’d been anywhere near our best but it’s hard to beat anyone when the front three perform like this. I had hoped that the two easy wins we’d had prior to this would have been enough to get them going again, but sadly not. The goal we scored came from Milner and the rest of our best chances all fell to Virgil. Where were the front three? Aside from Firmino’s clever lob that hit the post in the first half, they barely threatened. Mane followed that one up and tucked the rebound away but he was ruled offside. Apparently under the current rules that was an incorrect decision and the goal should have stood, but fucking hell, I don’t think I want to live in a world where that is considered to be onside. I mean come on. He runs in behind the defence and is a yard offside when the initial ball comes in. He even goes towards the ball but Firmino beats him to it. When Bobby takes the shot Mane is obviously onside at that point, but the only reason he is first to get to the loose ball is because he gained a huge advantage over the defenders by running offside in the first place. If the rules now state that this is ok, then the rules are a fucking joke. But then we knew that anyway. Look at Cardiff’s goal at Anfield last week, if that’s a legit goal then Mane’s should be too. The inconsistency bothers me, but other than that I can’t get worked up about it when to me that should always be given as offside. The real problem is that nobody knows anymore, not even the linesmen. It’s not their fault either, the whole thing is just a farce now. Maybe if the goal had stood the forwards would have grown in confidence and made more of the space that Arsenal were allowing them. We’ll never know. What we do know is that it didn’t stand and that was pretty much as good as it got for the forwards. Salah always looked like he was on the brink of doing something but he never did. Firmino never really looked on the brink of anything other than being substituted, which he eventually was, while Mane was just really hot and cold. Mostly cold. That Arsenal back four was tailor made for us and there was loads of space in behind them, but we didn’t control the midfield well enough and the forwards weren’t threatening enough. The mad thing is, despite rarely looking like being the better side we still had the better of the chances. Arsenal had a few good moments but mostly they were kept at arms length by our defence. Robbo was great and the two centre backs were pretty much flawless. I thought Trent was shite though and Alisson looked ropey. Had Lovren been fit we may have seen Gomez at right back, but unless Trent sorts himself out quickly it might even be worth bring Clyne back in. Alisson could have conceded a penalty when he came for a cross, was beaten to it by Mkhitaryan and ended up cleaning him out. Keepers usually get away with those to be fair, and at least the ref was consistent as he later waved away an identical claim we had at the other end when Van Dijk was belted in the face by Leno after beating him to the ball. Big Virg also put one into the keeper’s chest from close range. Should have scored really, and it’s bizarre that he hasn’t scored since that debut goal against the Blues. He seems to have a chance every week. I suspect once he ends his dry spell they’ll start to come regularly. We eventually broke the deadlock when Mane escaped down the left and his cross was parried by Leno straight into the path of Milner. It’s easy to blaze those over the bar but he made sure he got right over the top of the ball and kept it down. He doesn’t get many from open play and he probably should chip in with more than he does really. It wasn’t his best game but he was better than the other two midfielders. Wijnaldum was neat and tidy in the first half and then pulled his disappearing Gini act in the second. I keep saying it, but as a number six he’s brilliant. As an eight, very hit and miss, especially away from home. Fabinho never got to grips with he speed of the game at all. He was late into challenges and always looked on the verge of being caught in possession. Playing against Red Star and Cardiff isn’t the greatest preparation for a high tempo game like this, and he was found out. Still some work to do with him, but having experienced this he’ll be better prepared next time. We missed Henderson though. Klopp’s midfield options were restricted with the skipper and Keita, but the way the game was going it looked like a fairly obvious call to get Fabinho off and either Lallana or Shaqiri on in midfield. Instead Klopp seemed to tweak the formation. It looked to me that we went 4-4-1-1 in the second half, with Milner right midfield and Bobby playing in behind Mo. Not sure what the thinking was there, but it didn’t really work. Personally I’d have gone like for like and matched what Arsenal were doing, and just backed our lads to do it better. In other words, get Fabinho off, switch to 4-2-3-1 and get Shaq on to supply the front three. Instead we got Shaq on for Bobby. It didn’t help much, but I did think we’d probably be able to hold onto the lead as the defence were doing well for the most part. It’s not like Alisson had many shots to save, but then Arsenal produced one moment of real quality and were level. It was brilliant from Lacazatte. We were unlucky because nine times out of ten that doesn’t end up in our net. Alisson did well not to bring him down and having been forced wide it looked like the chance had gone. Lacazette checked back onto his right foot and lashed it right in the corner. He had a window of about one foot otherwise that wasn’t going in. Sadly for us he lashed it right through that window. The worry then was that we might blow it and end up with nothing. It’s happened before. Not this time though. We rallied quite well and had a couple of promising breaks. One saw Shaqiri pick out Sadio for a rasping shot just over the bar, and the other should have seen Salah roll the ball to Mane who was clean through. Unfortunately he did exactly what he did at Huddersfield the other week and passed it straight to the last defender. It was unspeakably shit and it took me about an hour to calm down. The draw is a decent result and it’s not as though we deserved more than a point based on how we played, but that one moment really stayed with me for a while because I can’t get my head around Salah doing something that shit twice in as many away games. Sort your shit out Mo. Maybe Klopp was as pissed off as me, as that’s the only explanation I can think of for the fucking pointless change he made with a minute left. Matip for Salah? Why? Just why? Salah had made a mess of that counter attack but the fact Arsenal were so wide open for it meant we might get another chance. Instead we got fucking Joel Matip. Depressing. Nothing against big Joel but the message it sent out was just all kinds of wrong, and besides, that’s a change you make when a) you’re winning, and b) the other team is desperate and pumping long balls into the box. Neither of those applied, so again I ask, what was the fucking point? Kloppo was pissed off at that pass I tell you! So anyway, we didn’t lose but we slipped two points behind City. Not a huge deal at this stage, but it reduces our margin for error because you can probably count on one hand the number of games City won’t win. We’re now relying on Mourinho and United to do us a favour next week. As if that’s gonna fucking happen. We need to disregard what City are doing and view our season based on what we do. If we finish with 90 odd points and it’s not enough, there’ll be people complaining and scapegoating certain players. It’s understandable but it’s just fucking wrong isn’t it? This is the City effect though, they’re ruining the game the fucking twats. Star man is Van Dijk. Just a shame his finishing isn’t as good as his defending. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Milner, Wijnaldum; Salah (Matip), Firmino (Shaqiri), Mane: