Five things learned as lethal Lacazette earns Arsenal draw v Liverpool

In a thrilling match at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal and Liverpool played out a 1-1 draw.

The game was pulsating and full of end-to-end action as the Gunners and the Reds (wearing purple) went at it, only to end up even. Despite failing to win, the draw does put Liverpool top of the table (for now). But what did we learn?

1. Lethal Lacazette

Strikers are often given far more credit than they deserve. They are judged to have “played well” even if they are terrible but manage to score a goal. It’s a position that focuses more on end result than process more than any other. And that may seem off, or wrong, but one thing you have to admire and laud is the way that strikers, you know, score.

Because sometimes they do absolutely ridiculous things. Like Alexandre Lacazette did today at the Emirates Stadium. Denied service, he was on the periphery for much of the game, but when the chance was presented to him, well, the half-chance that came from Alex Iwobi’s through-ball, he did a madness.

Lacazette’s run was great but Alisson’s goalkeeping was sublime to close the space and force the Frenchman wide. At this point, the chance is basically gone. The window for Lacazette to score from where he was standing was miniscule. He basically had to squeeze the ball into a window that wasn’t much bigger than the ball itself. And yet he did. Lashing it home with terrifying power and accuracy, drawing Arsenal level from almost nothing – showing the true worth of strikers.

2. Bernd on crosses

When Arsenal signed Bernd Leno in the summer, it seemed a strange transfer. After all the German wasn’t exactly one of his country’s top stoppers (although Germany are spoiled for depth in the net) and that seemed to bare out as Arsenal didn’t put him in goal at first, with Unai Emery feeling comfortable to stick with Petr Cech.

Eventually, Cech got injured and Leno got his chance. But tonight’s game showed just why Emery was happy to take his time. Leno is enormously shaky on crosses, never looking comfortable coming to collect them.

He almost got caught out by Virgil Van Dijk, flapping hysterically at a simple cross. And he did get caught out by a simple Sadio Mané centre, dropping what should have been an easy collection onto the foot of Rob Holding, allowing James Milner to rifle in the opening goal for Liverpool. It was so needless, and yet it points to what could be an ongoing problem if teams begin to target Arsenal in the air.

3. eLiTe PrEmIeR lEaGuE dEfEnDiNg

One thing English football has always valorised, even through the changing football culture, is defenders. Perhaps it’s because defending is an overtly masculine act, physically putting your body in the way of an attack to keep your goal “safe” from marauding hunters, and we know how much English football culture cherishes masculinity.

But yes, defending. That’s always been the one. Yet in this game between two of England’s best sides there was almost none of the stuff to be seen. The game ended 1-1 but it could just have easily been 5-5 the amount of times good players were in great positions and made bad decisions that allowed defenders to rush back and get a block in.

The exception to this haphazard nonsense was Virgil Van Dijk. The Dutch defender didn’t start the game well but he gradually got better as the match went on. Like a long distance runner he just kept on going and going, putting in an almost flawless display. The only error was that he didn’t track Alexandre Lacazette’s run for the Frenchman’s goal, but so much happened between that run and the goal it would be churlish to blame the Dutchman when he had been so fantastic otherwise.

4. YNVAR

Early in the first half, Trent Alexander-Arnold lofted a stunning ball behind the Arsenal back-line seemingly towards an offside Sadio Mané, but an onrushing Roberto Firmino instead received the pass after darting behind the Arsenal defenders. The Brazilian chipped the onrushing Berd Leno only to be denied by the post, but the ball fell to Sadio Mané who tapped home.

Except the goal was ruled out for… offside? Well, Mané was certainly offside when the initial pass came in but he was also inactive in that phase. Once Firmino had the ball and chipped it over Leno, the Senegalese was behind his Brazilian team-mate thus onside. This was a simple and understandable error (the whole thing happened very quickly) that VAR would have cleared right up.

But as always, we are forced to lament the fact that the best organised and funded league in the world doesn’t have VAR to help make the correct calls. Liverpool will be lamenting the decision because had they taken a two goal lead then perhaps Arsenal wouldn’t have been able to mount the comeback they ended up doing.

5. Emery gets it backwards, but gets away with it

Arsenal began the game with their four big forwards on the field: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. It is a fearsome line-up to look at, but is it their best shape, chemistry-wise? Sure those are their four best players, but if you look at them none of them can really dribble reliably and none of them are a great defensive force.

Emery rarely if ever uses them all together for that reason, as it leaves Arsenal looking top-heavy. Against Liverpool that would have worked had they taken an early lead and then rinsed Liverpool on the break. But they didn’t do that, so in the end couldn’t get any sort of control over the Reds and in the end were lucky to go in level at half-time.

It just proved how important Alex Iwobi is for the Gunners; the Nigerian provides things none of the star strikers do, bringing balance to the front-line and entire team in general; it was no surprise when he came on for Mkhitaryan in the second half.

That he was followed by Aaron Ramsey replacing a clearly exhausted Aubameyang goes to show that out of a desire to start all his best players, Emery ended up ruining the formula he had been using to great success: start with Iwobi and let him run the hard yards, then when the defence is tiring bring on the lightning-quick Aubameyang to kill them off.

In the end, Emery actually got away with it as Iwobi produced a genuinely stunning assist and Lacazette a miracle finish. The Spaniard’s changes worked yet again and that’s 10 of Arsenal’s last 11 Premier League goals coming in the second halves of games. The Gunners played well most of the game, especially Lucas Torreira in midfield, but it took something special to rescue Emery from his wonky team selection.

The post Five things learned as lethal Lacazette earns Arsenal draw v Liverpool appeared first on Squawka News.

From Squawka NewsSquawka News https://ift.tt/2FbuUDg