The 3-3 draw against Liverpool was probably a game for the neutrals, but definitely not for us. It means that we’re joint top with Leicester City (with our noses ahead on goal difference), and maintain a 3-point lead over Manchester City, a more realistic title contender. However, considering what happened yesterday, it would have been reasonable to want a five point leader over the latter.
We pretty much selected everyone we could, and even though Oxlade-Chamberlain offered room for rotation, it was probably the right call to bench him. Joel Campbell has come on leaps and bounds from his earlier games, adding skill to stamina and staking a reasonable claim for a starting berth.
While I hardly had any problems with the lineup, it was our attitude that unnerved me. There’s something brittle about this side when it comes to the pressure of expectation. We’ve started to play very well against teams we overestimate (i.e. Manchester United, City and Bayern) but the caveat is that we hugely disappoint in games where we’re tipped to win. We lost to Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos, got thumped 4-0 at Southampton and were even trailing against Sunderland in the FA Cup.
It wasn’t hard to notice a similar ‘approach’ yesterday. Take the history away from Liverpool, and all you see is a mid-table club with second-rate players, and a first-rate manager who doesn’t know what to do with them. Yet, predictably, we made them look like Barçelona in their prime.
Aaron Ramsey’s goal was sandwiched between a Liverpool wave that we were lucky didn’t affect the result permanently. Liverpool in their ebb and flow looked dangerous on the attack, with Jordan Ibe and Emre Can (of all people) constantly tormenting us. Per Mertesacker seemed the only shining light in a defence constantly in disarray.
Thankfully, Liverpool’s defence wasn’t the best either. Kolo Toure and Simon Mignolet made sure we got in the game, and after Giroud scored to make it 2-2, they lost heart in their plan and offered us what makes us potent – confidence.
We sort-of capitalized on that when some slick play on the right flank paved the way for Giroud to curl in an absolute beauty, making it 3-2. He’s approaching the 20-goal mark already, and considering we’re barely halfway into the season, that’s a ludicrous run of form. If not for Mesut Özil, he’d probably be our player of the season.
Painfully though, we weren’t able to make our advantage count. We were looking nervy for a while, and Liverpool missed a decent couple of chances before they made it 3-3. It’s reasonable to say that Liverpool deserved at least a point from that, but also reasonable to be utterly anguished that we threw the game away after having it in our hands, again.
By the way, if we’d have managed to keep the lead, that would have been winning ugly. Winning ugly is not scrapping a 1-0 against Newcastle at home. That’s a symptom of mental frailty rather than of fortitude. Those symptoms manifested themselves again, causing us to fail to defeat a sub-standard side.
Buying Mohamed Elneny is good for depth and all that, but it’s not players who will solve this conundrum. Keeping the team’s psychology intact as the club enters a run of testing fixtures is vital if we want to win the Premier League, and challenge in Europe (don’t laugh). That comes from above.
Thankfully, most teams seem mentally syndromed in England. While our psychologically frugal state as such will get us nowhere in Europe of course, in England, other teams are equally inept. Yet again, if we string a run of wins – be it ugly or otherwise – the near certainty of other competitors dropping points means that a draw against Liverpool can be forgiven, like against West Brom, Norwich and Southampton were.
Can we do it?
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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