JURG HAS KNEES UP ...but not how he’d wanted as Klopp is decked TWICE
DURING a game that often had Anfield on its feet, Jurgen Klopp was twice brought to his knees.
The first time was when the unfortunate, falling Konstantinos Tsimikas wiped out his manager after the defender had come off second best in a touchline battle with Bukayo Saka.
The second time was when Klopp theatrically collapsed in frustration after Trent Alexander-Arnold smashed a second-half sitter against the crossbar.
The Liverpool boss knew it was not only a chance missed by Trent, but this was also a chance missed by his team.
On a night when, rather oddly, Arsenal players seemed to have some trouble staying on their feet, this was a Liverpool slip-up.
But Klopp can take consolation and encouragement from the way his team responded to an early setback and the way they then took the fight to the Premier League leaders.
When Klopp was telling the paying punters to get up for this game, you might have wondered if he had forgotten to suggest it to his players as well.
The home fans were raucous enough, the team not so much.
But they were up against an Arsenal side that remains strangely underrated.
Sure, they wilted in the face of Manchester City’s relentless surge last season but they were still a work in progress.
This time around, they look like a more sophisticated, not to mention robust, operation.
The acquisition of Declan Rice has clearly been instrumental in that but, throughout the line-up, they look to have developed in a physical sense.
If Klopp’s hyped-up atmosphere was supposed to intimidate some softies from the south, it did not work.
This is a resilient Arsenal.
But it is an Arsenal that still has the odd weakness in the odd part of the pitch and, in this case, it was on the left
flank where Oleksandr Zinchenko’s defensive capabilities were always going to be strenuously tested by Salah.
And Zinchenko’s defensive capabilities are, er, somewhat limited.
After Gabriel’s textbook header had put the Gunners ahead, Salah’s equaliser was conceded far too easily.
Suffice to say, training cones have probably given the Egyptian more trouble in training than Zinchenko did when faced with Salah, who had been released by one of Alexander-Arnold’s showreel assists.
Salah stepped past the Arsenal defender and snapped a left-footer past
David Raya before you could say Aaron Ramsdale.
Against Manchester United last weekend, Salah’s performance was startlingly poor – startling because that sort of contribution has been so rare across his body of Liverpool work.
But this was back to standard and his 151st Premier League goal puts him tenth on the competition’s all-time scoring list.
The number of games Salah misses because of his commitments in the African Cup of Nations next month could be a decisive factor in Liverpool’s challenge. But what this potboiler of a contest demonstrated is that BOTH of these teams will almost certainly remain in the title mix until the bitter end.
To some extent, of course, that might depend on injury scenarios. Not unlike every other elite side, both have individuals who are key to their fortunes.
Salah and Virgil van Dijk are fundamental to all that Liverpool do while Martin Odegaard runs the show for Mikel Arteta, scattering sumptuous passes across the Anfield turf all evening.
One outlandish piece of control set up a super chance for Zinchenko but, on this sort of form, the Ukrainian’s effort was only going to end up in one place – amongst his supporters.
Zinchenko’s performance also highlighted how important the absent Takehiro Tomiyasu is to Arteta’s defensive plans.
On one second-half occasion, Zincheko got in Odegaard’s way, prompting a Liverpool counter-attack that finished with five against two but also with Alexander-Arnold smacking his strike against the bar.
Klopp despaired, Arsenal regrouped, the honours were shared … and the title race is shaping up to be one of the most compelling for some time.