Liverpool 1 – Arsenal 1: Instant Karma’s Gonna Get You (Updated with Player Ratings)

Full recap coming up, as soon as I stop laughing…

Well, the season is back, and could it have kicked off in more mental fashion? I submit to you that it could not. Honestly, I just feel weird. Is this how fans of every other team feel when Almunia or Flaps cock up and hand them a result? Because I can’t lie to you, it feels pretty good.

1-1. I have to say, especially given that our performance was pretty poor, I view this as a point gained, not 2 points dropped. Anfield is a very tough place to play, and I think we have to take this and be contented, if not ecstatic, about it.

And the way it happened, honestly, could not have been better. Remember this?

Reina took it upon himself to get involved in a transfer saga which had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with him, and to hold Cesc’s arms down while Cesc was trying to get the Barcelona shirt off. Flash forward a month, and lo and behold, what happened? Reina spills the ball into his own net, costing his own team 2 points, and giving Arsenal 1 point.

The same Arsenal that hung on to Cesc Fabregas, while Liverpool’s best midfielder, Javier Mascherano, appears to be jockeying for a move to Barcelona. Funny how that works out, isn’t it? Karma. I bet even frakking Flaps had a good laugh at that one. Maybe Reina needs an infusion of some more of that precious, precious Barcelona DNA.

I thought Arsenal had the better of the first-half, but we were hardly impressive. We controlled possession and generally played in Liverpool’s half. But we didn’t really create any great scoring chances, and overall, it was a pretty boring first half until the very end. The ball was in the Arsenal half, bouncing into the corner, and newboy Laurent Koscielny went over, gathered it, and prepared to clear it. But he took a second too long, and Liverpool’s newboy, Joke Hole closed him down and went in for a lunging tackle to block the clearance. He missed the ball took the leg, and Koscielny’s leg twisted badly. The referee showed Joke Hole red, and Koscielny had to be stretchered off. It looked pretty bad.

Okay, let’s deal with it. Some of you may disagree, but I don’t think this is the same thing as the neanderthal tackles of Ryan Shawcross and Martin Taylor that broke the legs of Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo, respectively. It was late, and it was reckless, and honestly, if you leave your feet with your foot up like that, I don’t have a problem with it being a red card. Intentional or not, that’s how guys get seriously injured, and there’s no place for that in the game. That being said — I do think Hole was playing the ball, and didn’t miss it by much, and I don’t think he intended to take out Koscielny. For me, the tackle was sort of between a yellow and a red, and could have gone either way. I don’t find it objectionable that he got a red, but again, this is not in the same category of Shawcross or Taylor whose hacksaw tackles were very much intended to kick legs.

Of course everybody is spouting off nonsense about “he’s not that kind of player,” and I don’t give a shit. Did you ever notice how it’s only (white) British players who “aren’t that kind of player,” and every time a foreign player is involved in a tackle, it’s dirty foreign thugs ruining the game? I would say that the English media should be ashamed of itself, but that would require a presumption that it has any shame to begin with. Certainly if that had been Koscielny making that challenge on Hole, I can’t even imagine how apoplectic with rage the media would be.

And a word for the Liverpool fans. Booing the referee is fine. Like I said, I understand if you thought it should have been a yellow and disagreed with the call. But to boo Koscielny, who did nothing except get hacked down and get hurt, and sing that stupid “Same old Arsenal, always cheating” song…well, that’s just stupid. And classless. I generally like Liverpool, and its fans, and think they’re better than that. Show some basic decency. I guess on the plus side, it proves that Liverpool fans actually know another song. I suppose that’s progress of a sort.

So the mood at half-time was largely somber, because with Koscielny presumably out, we had no idea who would fill in at center back. Djourou was out, Nordtveit was out, and the only guy on the bench with any center back experience was Alex Song, who was supposedly hurt, too. It was a real worry. But then, at the half, we all breathed a massive collective sigh of relief as Koscielny walked out in a great “Daniel Larusso’s going to fight!” moment. He looked to be okay.

But that relief quickly turned to despair as Jack Wilshere gave the ball away badly deep in his own half, the ball came to Daniel Ngog, who got by Vermaelen and finished very nicely from a difficult angle. Almunia perhaps could have done a bit better by reacting quicker, but generally speaking he was in good position. It was just sloppy play in our own half and a brilliant finish by Ngog. Full credit to Liverpool, because when they went down to 10 men they really stepped up and fought for the game. 3 points for them would not have been an unfair reflection of the game.

They created several more chances, and really kept Arsenal on the back foot until Arsenal made a couple of substitutions, bringing on Walcott and Rosicky for Eboue and Wilshere. At that point, Arsenal started to press on a little bit, and created a couple of decent chances, but nothing came to any of them. Then, right before injury time, a cross came in, Reina came out to claim, and Chamakh showed what he gives us, when he went up to challenge Reina for the ball, and deflected it past Reina, although unfortunately it clattered off the post and bounced straight back. But then Reina went to gather the ball and well, he just tossed it into his own net, Flaps-style. In a weekend full of goalkeeper cock-ups, we were the recipient of perhaps the worst. Delicious.

The other talking point was Koscielny, who got ejected from his first Premiership start, receiving two yellows late in the game. The first one was pretty clear. He was trying to play the ball, but very recklessly kicked out at it, and managed to catch Kuyt square in the “little Dirk.” Ouch. The second came right before the death. He was defending Torres (who came on from a late sub and didn’t make a great impact), who tried to chip it up over him, when it hit Koscielny on the hand. The yellow judged it an intentional handball, and pulled the card out of his pocket. It looked harsh to me, I have to say. But he’ll miss a game, next week against Blackpool. That should, objectively, be one of our very easiest matches all season, so hopefully we’ll be able to figure something out at the back.

We didn’t look good. But considering how many key players we were missing, how short on training everyone has been, and how tough a match this was, I don’t think we can complain too much about getting the point today. The season is underway. I’m so glad it’s finally here.

On to the player ratings:

Almunia 5.5 Well, he wasn’t exactly good by any other club’s standards. And he had a couple of moments where he looked pretty shaky. But he wasn’t really at fault for the goal, and had a couple of other decent saves and confident takes. Baby steps. At the very least, I think he vindicated Wenger’s decision to start him over Flaps, although he certainly didn’t do enough to silence those of us who are crying out for a new keeper. The clubhouse favorite to start at home against Blackpool as well, assuming no deal for Schwarzer gets done this week.

Sagna 6 Not his best game, to be sure, as he struggled to deal with Milan Jovanovic defensively. He was called on to cross a lot, which was not great, but not terrible. Pretty average performance.

Clichy 6.5 Pretty good game. He had a couple of times where he failed to deal with threats down the right, but for the most part who held his area pretty well, and looked sharp going forward. If he gave us that kind of performance week in and week out, we couldn’t complain too much.

Vermaelen 6.5 A little slow to react on Ngog’s goal, but again, that was mainly just a great goal from Ngog. He got forward really well, and had a couple of really good headed chances that went over or wide. He’s going to score some goals this year. And the dynamic between he and Koscielny seemed pretty clear — Koscielny will stay back when Vermaelen surges forward to help out the attack.

Koscielny 7 So a lot of folks on the liveblog seemed to think he wasn’t up for the task. They were watching a different match than I was watching, I guess, because I thought Koscielny looked excellent on his debut for the club. His positioning and reading of the game is excellent, and he’s a great recovery defender — he may be the perfect partner for the more adventurous Vermaelen. If he builds on this, we’ll have found ourselves another excellent defender. Very unlucky to get sent off, although he does need to watch the fouls, because he could find himself in trouble a lot if he doesn’t learn to deal with the physical side of things better.

Wilshere 4 Woof. Bad performance. Certainly didn’t do anything to dispel the notion that he’s not ready to really play at this level yet. His giveaway led to the Liverpool goal, he was overaggressive and clumsy in the tackle (picking up a yellow in the process), and generally looked badly overmatched. Hopefully he’ll get some more opportunities against some of the Premiership’s lesser teams, where I think he’ll fare a lot better.

Diaby 6 Wasn’t really good by any stretch of the imagination, but you’ve got to cut him a little slack for playing in a position/role to which he is not well-suited. Completed something like 50 of 52 passes. Obviously not a good option at holding midfielder, but didn’t acquit himself poorly all things considered.

Nasri 7 Didn’t set the world on fire, but was Arsenal’s liveliest attacking player for the first 60 minutes of the game, and was ambitious and creative in trying to get something going.

Eboue 5 Invisible. I don’t understand why Arsene continues to play Eboue so far forward. I’ve said a million times, I’ll say it once more: EBOUE IS BAD AS A FORWARD. His entire contribution to the attack lies in his ability to make good runs from deep, forcing defenders on the backline to leave their spot to come mark him, and then, ideally, let him lay the ball off into the vacated space. He can’t do that as a forward, because he doesn’t play well with his back to the goal and is terrible at timing runs without the ball. Please, keep him as a right-back or a deeper midfielder in the future.

Arshavin 4 For everyone who said I was being too harsh on him in the comments section the other day, I would submit film of this match for why Arshavin is my least favorite Gunner at the moment. Completely lazy, uninvolved in team play, didn’t track back, and was a dead end for any attacking move. For all the talk about Liverpool going down to 10 men, we were effectively with 10 men all match.

Chamakh 6 Didn’t do much of anything until he created the havoc which led to Reina’s own goal. And that is what he will offer — someone who will go up and battle for those balls in the box. Other than that, he didn’t shine, although it should be noted that he wasn’t getting much in the way of service, either. And as I’ve said before, he’s not really a true goalscorer — he can create chances for his teammates, but when his fellow attackers are as poor as they were today, he’s going to struggle.

Rosicky 7.5 Man of the Match. Color me stunned. I don’t generally like to give the ultra-prestigious Arsenal Offside MotM award to substitutes, but Arsenal turned the tide upon Rosicky’s introduction, and he played a party in nearly everything positive Arsenal did in the last half hour. He had several great balls which led to scoring chances, one excellent shot that forced Reina into a very good save, and it was his cross that led to the own goal. Impact sub. Not bad for a guy about whom just a few weeks ago I was saying I didn’t care if he stayed at the club or left. The lesson, as always: I’m an idiot. If he can play like that with any regularity, he’ll be an important part of the squad this year.

Walcott 6 Well, it was vintage Theo in some ways. A lot of running, not much end product. At one point got the ball in the box with his back to the goal, and instead of doing, well, anything, he decided to just fall over like a toddler just learning to walk. But where did that shot come from? He took a free kick outside the box and did very well to bend it around the wall and inside the far post, and forced Reina into a very good save. He also took a shot from long-range that he probably shouldn’t have taken, but bent it nicely. Not sure if that is a result of him working with Beckham, but if he can do that, I think I’d prefer him to be our right-footed free-kick taker (over Cesc and Nasri).

van Persie 6 Didn’t make that much of an impact in limited action, but looked up for it, and nearly put Chamakh through on goal at one point. Looking forward to him getting a week of match fitness back and hopefully seeing a lot more of him against Blackpool on Saturday.

And that’s it, really. Not a great performance, but all things considered, we can’t have too much to complain about. This was a very tough season opener, but we have what should on paper be one of our easiest matches of the season on Saturday home to Blackpool, so hopefully we can get everyone healthy and in shape and get 3 points on Saturday, and be armed and fully operational before a really tough trip up to Blackburn at the end of the month. Enjoy the rest of your weekends.

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Category: Arsenal News, Fixtures, Liverpool, Match Review, Premiership