A bruising night at the Stadium of Light ended in frustration, but the reaction from pundits has only underlined how differently Arsenal and Liverpool are viewed right now.
I watched Arsenal’s weekend draw at Sunderland in the, as it turned out, inappropriately named Victory pub upstairs at Waterloo station.
I had to resort to this as, weeks ago, I’d arranged to meet up with my Auntie Susan & Uncle Joe and I hadn’t clocked the date. Silly me. I’m kind of glad at how things turned out though. You all know how the game ended, but once it had, I took a few seconds, turned back to the conversation at the table, let the game go and got on with enjoying my evening. I’m not sure I would have responded like that watching at home.
Of course, it’s gutting to drop two points in the circumstances we did, but honestly, if you’d asked me an hour earlier, would I have taken a point? I’d have snapped your hand off for it. A hostile crowd, a goal from nothing – well, no, not nothing, a free kick which should never have been given; a big physical side defending their box in numbers and a referee in Craig Pawson who seemed very happy to follow the North East template and let the home side do what they want. It was difficult to see a way back in for the Arsenal.
And yet.
Not only did they find a way back in, they played Sunderland off their own pitch for a good half an hour. The equalising goal was a four man thing of beauty as Declan Rice won the ball, found Ebere Eze, to Merino, he played in Saka on the right.
Could Saka finish on his right foot? A stunning finish lasered inside the near post an emphatic answer to that question. Leandro Trossard’s strike to put us 2-1 up was even better as wriggling his way into space on the edge of the box, he found a yard and took a mile with an absolute ripper that rose and rose as it flew into the net.
It should have been the match winner, it deserved to be. Unfortunately, Sunderland had other ideas. They rolled the dice with a triple attacking change. With the amount of attacking players Arsenal are missing, it was always going to be difficult to respond in kind.
Mosquera for Eze was understandable to me, given the situation we found ourselves in and our much vaunted defensive strength, but perhaps Mikel will look at the last 20 minutes now and think he may have invited Sunderland on.
Even then, it took a split second judgement call from David Raya, who came rushing out of his goal to try and claim the ball, leaving Brobbey to improvise a finish and send the Stadium of Light – and, apparently, the rest of the footballing world into raptures.
I realised earlier this morning that due to my two and a half year absence from this site, I haven’t written about David Raya at all and, as someone who counts two Brentford season ticket holders amongst his closest friends, I had ample – okay, okay – some exposure to him before we signed him.
I didn’t want him, I thought he was error prone and certainly not an improvement on dear old Rammers.
I was wrong.
I think Raya has been an exceptional signing and I’m glad to have him. He got it wrong on Saturday, but I’d much rather have a goalkeeper who comes to get the ball and help his defence than one who doesn’t. Not naming names, but you only have to think of the last Spanish goalkeeper we had to appreciate the difference.
The reaction to Saturday night has been thought provoking for me, with pundits and commentators talking about how brilliant Sunderland were on Saturday night. From where I was sitting, Sunderland roughed us up as much as they wanted to, Craig Pawson’s failure to censure man of the match Dan Ballard’s early elbow to the head of Mikel Merino setting the scene – there were countless late challenges that went similarly unpunished later in the game. They got two breaks of the ball in our box and scored from both of them.
Shout out, by the way, to Dermot Gallagher, whose “if anything, Merino jumps into Ballard’s elbow” defence of the challenge brought to mind the old line along the lines of “Oh, I’m terribly sorry for headbutting your shoe, Mr Begbie.” Cretin.
I suppose, through gritted teeth, you have to give Sunderland credit for ensuring that we got no breaks of the ball in their box. This was, of course, exemplified in the last meaningful action of the game, when Ballard reacted to deny Mikel Merino (again!) who was about to fire in a rebound from Calafiori’s header.
I understand for Sunderland fans and players, particularly Dan Ballard – who grew up at Arsenal – and Granit Xhaka that this will have felt like a win for them. But it wasn’t. And the fact that it’s been greeted as such tells you a little about how this Arsenal team is currently viewed.
It’s almost a bit like when Rocky cuts Ivan Drago for the first time at the end of Rocky IV – “you see! He’s not a machine!”
I think people are now looking at this Arsenal team and, apart from the idiots like Jamie O’Hara – surely Richarlison’s only rival in the competition to be the world’s most ridiculously pathetic man – they can’t see a weakness. How many times have you heard someone say “no excuses” about us now? This team, this squad has been precision tooled to deliver the Premier League and the Champions League and the outside world knows it.
Our only problem is, actually, we’re not the Ivan Drago of this story. The Ivan Drago of this story is a couple of hundred miles to the north west and they just hammered the, surely outgoing, Premier League champions.
They looked pretty bloody good doing it too, didn’t they? I’m sure they want their title back, but is their re-emergence as a serious threat to Arsenal genuine?
Or is it a mirage, bolstered by their showing against a Liverpool team currently essaying the most pathetic title defence since Oliver McCall surrendered his title to Lennox Lewis at Wembley in 1997?
Honestly, to watch Liverpool at the weekend – well, they looked like us five years ago. It was very weird to watch, but also lots of fun too! Long may it continue.
Have a great weekend everyone, let’s hope for no (more) injuries out of this latest international block.