As the league leaders now know better than anyone, there is little like a late goal for that rush, that surge of emotion that floods all thinking and makes everything seem worth it. One key difference already this season, however, is that Liverpool have scored them to win games and Gabriel Martinelli’s was to salvage a point. Mikel Arteta’s “finishers” at least had the final say against Manchester City. Eberechi Eze picked out Martinelli with that beautiful lofted pass, and the Brazilian finished brilliantly.
After a strange if absorbing afternoon at Arsenal, Arteta was naturally asked if that reflected the fact he’d got his starting lineup wrong and that the finishers should actually have been starters. It could have been much worse for Arsenal but there was also that lingering sense that they’d left something out there, that it could have been much better. City, who very much “parked the bus”, seemed to get away with one.
Arteta admitted he was “very disappointed with the result” but wouldn’t quite go as far as the question.
“It’s too easy to say that, I think.”
It’s a phrase that maybe revealed more than intended, and also reflected one of many ironies to this curious 1-1.
Principally, whether Arteta himself did indeed overthink a match against one of the game’s biggest overthinkers in Pep Guardiola. Arsenal certainly paid City more respect than arguably anyone has in a year. And, typically, there was at least some logic to that.
From what insider sources say, Arteta and his staff had been conscious of the fact that a new City team’s adaptation to a different pressing system has caused them to tire more than usual at around the hour mark. The biggest illustration so far was the 2-1 defeat away to Brighton. It hardly helps that Rodri can’t yet be as physically dominant as we’re accustomed to.
So, that should have been prime time to then bring on fresh attackers and cause havoc.
To add to that, Arteta also wanted to start the game using the “positive momentum” of specific players who are on good form. Leandro Trossard got a goal and assist against Athletic Club. Mikel Merino has been on fine form. Noni Madueke has enjoyed an exhilarating start to his Arsenal career.
Except, in this match, it all felt a bit too much.
It was even like Arsenal were thinking too much in play. The build-up was cautious and lacking spark, an aspect that looked all the more pronounced when the sensational Erling Haaland surged through for that brilliant opening strike. You knew it was a goal the second he and Tijjani Reijnders set off.
It was such a straight line, compared to the knots that Arteta’s side were getting themselves into.
Arsenal, in essence, had overcomplicated things – right down to the counterintuitive logic of starting almost all of their best attackers on the bench.
Against that, Haaland made things so simple. And that very goal played into another of the game’s key ironies.
First, there was how stripped-down City were. It wasn’t quite “reductive”, given that Rodri is still there and they have the class of a player like Reijnders.
But you can still almost reduce it to having one big lad at the back and one big lad up front. Gigi Donnarumma keeps them out, and Haaland puts them in.
It’s reminiscent of Real Madrid around the mid-2000s, when Iker Casillas would keep them out and Ronaldo would put them in.
Except that obviously wasn’t the comparison people were thinking of. One stood out as the game went on. That was Internazionale against Guardiola’s own Barcelona in 2009-10. There were stretches when City had almost their full XI congesting space in the box. Haaland seemed to be clearing it more than he was shooting. City had a mere 32.8 per cent possession, the lowest of the manager’s entire career. For all the focus on the two big men, some of the defenders were superb. Special mention should be afforded for Josko Gvardiol and Nico O’Reilly. They got their bodies in the way of so much.
No one could have imagined a scene like this from Guardiola as he paced that touchline back in 2010, trying to come up with ways for that attack to open up Jose Mourinho’s packed defence. It appeared to go against every one of his principles, and Guardiola himself gestured that this was a compliment to Arsenal.
It also represents a clear logic, and – yes – perhaps some overthinking. Guardiola may have changed the game through those principles, but that’s the thing. The game has changed. The world around those principles has moved.
It is arguably the most Guardiola thing imaginable to do something else when everyone is trying to copy him. He’s consequently doing something old and new at the same time.
In a world of short passes and slow build-up through the right-back, launch it to your big man. In a world where set-pieces are treated like space launches, get your big goalkeeper to knock everything away.
Arsenal had much less success with corners than we’ve seen in any game over the past two years. Is this an inevitable evolution in this dynamic, a response and counter-response? Are set-piece coaches now going to condition a new approach from opposition goalkeepers. Donnarumma even seemed to be getting into Arsenal’s heads – causing them to overthink – as he slowed down kick-outs to the point he eventually got booked. That’s another one from the Mourinho playbook.
Except, we then had the key final irony. In the one moment when City finally stepped up, and left that space in behind, Eze exploited it and Martinelli finished it.
Arsenal were consequently left rueing what might have been in this match. City both lost two points and got away with one.
So much to think about. And yet, as Arteta thinks, Liverpool just go and keep on winning.
