Petr Cech shines but offside call is costly for Arsenal

Both managers felt that their team could have claimed all three points. In reality it felt like it should probably have been a top-scoring draw. Brendan Rodgers was entitled to be the happier manager, delighted to see Liverpool playing so much more spiritedly and energetically than they did last season, but he was also grateful that, for the second successive Monday night, an incorrect offside decision went in his team’s favour — “a regular goal that was disallowed,” as Arsène Wenger called it.

It has been a strange start to the season for Arsenal. In two games at the Emirates Stadium they have failed to score, but the bigger concern last night, albeit not one reflected on the scoreboard, was their defending. Even if there was mitigation in the absence of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, their two senior centre-halves, there were moments in the first half — an awful lot of moments, in fact — when their defending was as wretched as anything you could ever expect to see at this level of the game.

As incisive as much of Liverpool’s attacking play was, with Coutinho again underlining his emergence as one of the league’s outstanding players, Arsenal’s defending showed a staggering lack of competence in the first half. It was not just the way that they were being opened up by Liverpool’s clever movement. It was the astonishing regularity with which they were conceding possession deep in their half of the pitch.

Liverpool should take some credit for that, with James Milner leading a return to the pressing game that worked so well for them two seasons ago, but really Arsenal were playing into their opponents’ hands. Calum Chambers, in particular, was having a torrid time, though he earned praise from Wenger for the way he stuck to his task and improved as the game went on.

Benteke threatened inside the first two minutes, scuffing a shot wide after Emre Can dribbled into the penalty area. A minute later Milner sent Benteke down the inside-right channel. This time the forward pulled the ball back into the path of Coutinho, whose first-time shot bounced off the bar.

For all of five minutes, Arsenal got their acts together and began to expose the defensive frailties in the opposition ranks. Nacho Monreal was given the space in which to cross from the left-hand side and pick out Alexis Sánchez, who, attacking the ball inside the six-yard box, should have hit the target.

In the ninth minute, Santi Cazorla split the Liverpool defence with an exquisite pass from which Ramsey found the net, only for the linesman to flag for offside — wrongly, since Ramsey was played onside by Skrtel. As Wenger said afterwards, Liverpool, recipients of an incorrect onside call against Bournemouth last week, are certainly getting the rub of the green in the opening weeks of the season.

The remainder of the first half followed a regular pattern: Arsenal would control possession for a period and then do something silly. A case in point came in the 14th minute, when Chambers was far too casual in trying to pick out Francis Coquelin, allowing Coutinho to intercept. Coquelin made a brilliant, if desperate, tackle, only for Cazorla to run straight into Milner, whose shot was deflected wide by Monreal.

Milner was enjoying himself, racing on to another Coutinho pass midway through the first half. His first shot was blocked by Gabriel, his second scrambled wide at the near post by an increasingly overworked Cech.

Liverpool really should have made their superiority tell in the period leading up to half-time. First of all Coutinho ran clear, from Emre Can’s header, but allowed Gabriel to race back and dispossess him. Then Coutinho combined with Roberto Firmino, whose cross found Benteke unmarked in the penalty area. The forward’s shot lacked conviction, but it was still a wonderful save from Cech, diving low to his left. An even better one followed in the final minute of the first half as the goalkeeper pushed Coutinho’s shot on to the post after the Brazilian, cutting in from the left, had beaten Héctor Bellerín with an audacious piece of skill.

The half-time whistle brought blessed relief for Arsenal, giving them a chance to find their focus and, at the same time, breaking Liverpool’s momentum. Chambers and Gabriel at last stabilised and, with that, Arsenal found some fluency.

Arsenal were at their best when they played one-touch football at speed. Mesut Özil, Cazorla and Olivier Giroud combined to set up Sánchez, whose shot struck the near post. Twice they worked their way into crossing positions from the left-hand side, but on neither occasion could Giroud turn the ball in. This was one of those nights when the small margins conspire to show Giroud’s limitations, even if it took a superb save from Mignolet to deny him after fine work between Özil, Bellerín and Ramsey.

Suddenly the game opened up again, Coutinho testing Cech before Ramsey sent Mignolet diving to his left. Benteke thought he should have had a penalty, when he was held by Gabriel, but then was lucky to escape punishment when he caught Chambers with a raised arm. It was that kind of a game, a ding-dong affair that could have gone either way but somehow ended up goalless. At the end of it, Cech and Mignolet traded shirts as well as compliments. If the scoreline was “fake”, it was largely their doing.

Arsenal (4-2-3-1): P Cech — H Bellerín, C Chambers, Gabriel, N Monreal — S Cazorla, F Coquelin (sub: A Oxlade-Chamberlain, 82min) — A Ramsey, M Özil, A Sánchez — O Giroud (sub: T Walcott, 73). Substitutes not used: D Ospina, M Debuchy, K Gibbs, M Flamini, M Arteta. Booked: Gabriel.

Liverpool (4-1-4-1): S Mignolet — N Clyne, M Skrtel, D Lovren, J Gomez — Lucas Leiva (sub: J Rossiter, 76) — R Firmino (sub: J Ibe, 63), J Milner, E Can, P Coutinho (sub: A Moreno, 88) — C Benteke. Substitutes not used: A Bogdan, M Sakho, D Ings, D Origi. Booked: Skrtel, Can, Gomez, Mignolet.

Referee: M Oliver.

Nil-nil desperandum

36

Years since Arsenal previously failed to score in first two home league games of season

5

Games among Arsenal’s past six at home in which they have failed to score

2

Teams who have begun this league season with two 1-0 wins and then a 0-0: Liverpool and Manchester United

0

Goalless draws in the previous 41 Arsenal meetings with Liverpool