Watch Liverpool

Posts Tagged ‘stamford-bridge’

Arsenal started as if their pre-match energy drinks had been laced with tranquilisers but after a hectic conclusion showed they can’t be written off

Was this the third-place play-off that turned into a revival of Arsenal’s bid to be taken seriously as contenders for the Premier League title? Recovering from an anxious and error-plagued first half last night, Arsène Wenger’s players did enough to suggest that they cannot quite be written off, particularly on a night when Chelsea and Manchester United lived up to the Frenchman’s prediction that they will continue to drop points as the season approaches its climactic phase.

In a sense we had been here before – or so Rafael Benítez will feel. It was at Anfield on 13 December, with Arsenal trailing by the only goal at the end of the first half, that Wenger gave his players an uncharacteristic roasting and received the desired response. Several of them shed the gloves they had been wearing, got stuck into Liverpool and won the match. Coming a fortnight after a traumatic home defeat at the hands of Chelsea, it looked temptingly like a turning-point in the north London club’s season.

Last night they met Liverpool again, this time having just lost to Manchester United and Chelsea in matches that severely damaged their hopes of capturing the title for the first time since 2003-04. Wenger, in his programme notes, refused to admit any similarity between the two defeats. Against United, he said, “we didn’t turn up”. Their failings, he explained, were “down to nerves on the day”. At Stamford Bridge they had “played like the home team” but suffered the misfortune of finding themselves two goals down after 20 minutes, having been “punished for our impatience”.

At the start of the evening it was difficult to imagine, even in this strange season, when eccentric results have been piled one atop another, that either of these teams would find themselves mounting a new challenge to the current top two. So concerned were Arsenal not to repeat the skittishness with which they played into Manchester United’s hands that they started last night as though their pre-match energy drinks had been laced with tranquillisers. What they seemed to be doing was trying to replicate their training-ground routines to calm themselves down.

In their preceding 180 minutes of competitive football those routines had not worked at all, despite being afforded the sort of time and space at Stamford Bridge that must have exceeded all their expectations. Penetration was almost entirely lacking and in last night’s first half they showed little more in the way of explosive dynamism.

Liverpool certainly started as though they had taken note of Chelsea’s success on Sunday in sitting back, allowing Ars­enal to advance in numbers and then hitting them on the counter. In Steven Gerrard and Emiliano Insúa the visitors had the players to launch quick breaks, with David Ngog and Dirk Kuyt ahead of them to take advantage. In a largely tedious opening period, however, they made no significant chances.

Once again Arsenal’s midfielders were being given plenty of space in which to weave their patterns, without being able to make the most of it. Nicklas Bendtner added weight and strength to the centre of the attack but for an hour he looked some way short of match sharpness. The supporters are having to wait a long time for Andrey Arshavin to produce another match-turning performance of the sort that secured the victory at Anfield while the Russian attempts to recover from his unhappy experience as a stand-in centre-forward.

But in the second minute after the resumption, as Arshavin scuttled in from the left and drilled a fierce shot into the side netting, it looked as though Wenger might have succcessfully repeated the sort of angry outburst that did the job at Anfield. Perhaps Benítez, too, had followed suit, since chances suddenly started to appear at both ends.

At last a desultory evening acquired intensity as both sides tried to convince themselves that this was a battle between prospective title challengers. The physical aggression and the foul count mounted and, as the match entered its last 20 ­minutes, Arsenal’s forwards finally ­combined to create the goal for Abou Diaby, a largely peripheral figure until he steamed through the middle to head home Tomas Rosicky’s cross.

Here, at last, Arsenal’s habitual quick thinking and geometrical neatness ended with a punch that carried some weight, although Liverpool’s defenders had been found wanting and might have conceded further goals. The visitors’ frantic attempts to snatch something from the match contributed to a hectic conclusion that could not have been predicted in the early stages, when both sides had the listlessness and inaccuracy of also-rans. But if this season has taught us one lesson, it is that only the very rash would draw firm conclusions from the events of a single night.

Premier LeagueArsenalLiverpoolRichard Williamsguardian.co.uk

• Arsenal left-back says next game can be new start
• Clichy admits they did not play well against Chelsea

Gaël Clichy has refused to rule Arsenal out of the title race despite the 2-0 defeat at Chelsea which leaves Arsène Wenger’s team nine points behind the Premier League leaders, and said their challenge must restart at the Emirates on Wednesday.

“Let’s work on it, next we play against a good side in Liverpool,” said Clichy. “It’s going to be difficult but we have to do it because if we want to be the best, we have to compete. We have to think game after game and it starts with Liverpool. We have to think one game at a time but the less we lose, the better it will be.

“The rule in sport is when you want to be the best, after every defeat you have to ask the right questions to yourself and the team. You have to go again and dig in. That is what we are going to start doing again in training because it is only with hard work and a bit of luck that things can happen. Maybe then we can go somewhere.”

Reflecting on the defeat at Stamford Bridge, the French left-back said: “It is even more complicated now to win the league but we have to keep fighting. We have seen everyone can drop points against anyone. Of course, it would have been better to win [against Chelsea] and against Manchester United, but that is the way it is. We need to be more decisive in the right moments and the best thing to do is to carry on fighting.

“Its not going to be easy, but it is not finished. We were 11 points behind [after Chelsea defeated Arsenal 3-0 in late November] and came back so we have to hope they drop points and make sure we don’t drop any points.”

The defeat to United came at the Emirates the week before last, when Arsenal enjoyed possession yet failed to produce an attacking threat. Against Chelsea they were again unable to convert pressure into goals, which is a prevailing criticism of the Frenchman’s side.

But while Wenger claimed the better team had lost, yesterday Clichy contradicted his manager’s view.

“You cannot say you played well when you lose 2-0 but we tried everything. We pushed hard today but we lost and it is hard to take. It is always difficult to play against Chelsea because even if you have the ball and you feel like you are playing better than them, they let you play but they have a strong striker up front in [Didier] Drogba, who can play alone for the 90 minutes,” he said.

ArsenalLiverpoolChelseaPremier LeagueJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk