Liverpool drop points: Frustration or relief?

Morning all.

So, did yesterday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Man Utd leave you more frustrated about our result at Brighton? I can understand if it did, an opportunity missed etc, but I was more relieved than anything else. Especially as I expected very little from United, and they actually played quite well. Given we have an FA Cup tie against them at the weekend, that’s not ideal, but we badly needed for Liverpool not to win and they helped us out in that sense.

I think I was more frustrated by the incident when Rasmus Hojlund kicked the ball away, in clear view of referee Michael Oliver … who did nothing. This is the same referee who couldn’t wait to issue a second yellow card to Leandro Trossard when we played Man City for kicking the ball less than a second after he’d blown his whistle for a foul. That cost us a player for the entire second half, and robbed us of a chance to build on what was a very good first 45 minutes.

It also meant the players we had out there had to work really hard, and I do wonder if we should factor that in to some of the fitness issues we’ve experienced this season. We played 55 minutes at the Etihad with 10 men; almost the entire second half against Brighton at home; and well over an hour when William Saliba was harshly red-carded against Bournemouth for an incident that wasn’t a red card in another game a day later. That takes a lot of out the players who have to work a lot harder to make up for the absence of a colleague.

It’s just infuriating that a rule that was so harshly applied to us earlier in the season, and which cost us points in both games, is now apparently not worth bothering with. Unless it’s a 17 year old taking a corner, of course, in which case the strictest possible definition of delaying the restart – TIME-WASTING – is applied. As I said in yesterday’s blog, we need to do more about the things we can control, but it’s impossible not to feel we’ve been royally fucked over by some of things we can’t.

What else? Well, can someone explain to me why Darwin Nunez wasn’t sent off for this? He had a good look at the opponent, then shouldered him right in the face. Is that not violent conduct? The fact that in commentary on Sky – despite Gary Neville muttering something like ‘That’s not nice’ – they completely glossed over it was amazing to me. I’ve written here too often about PGMOL’s soft-touch approach to on-pitch violence and dangerous challenges under the auspices of Howard Webb, but it’s hard not to think the broadcasters are also complicit when something like this happens. Howard his own show now on Sky too, so they won’t say anything that makes their mate look bad.

It’s pathetic really. Call it out for what it is, don’t talk out of the side of your mouth and move on. There have been far too many incidents when bad challenges or snide assaults on players have been either ignored completely or dealt with too lightly with just a booking. For me that makes it worse. They’re essentially telling players there is a low threshold for violent conduct, and we know there will be some who revel in that. Tomorrow night’s opposition, for example, are an extremely physical team who have players who live right on the edge in that regard, because they know there’s a good chance they won’t get punished to the full extent.

Even in reference to our game on Saturday, the Pervis Estupinan challenge on Declan Rice is at least partly informed by the fact he was only given a yellow card for a potential leg-breaker in their previous game against West Ham. If you’re that way inclined as a player, why wouldn’t you test the limits if you know referees aren’t going to punish you? Anyway, I guess the point is that in a season when the only luck we’ve had is bad luck, Liverpool were fortunate to get away with that.

Finally, and I do realise this has been quite light on Arsenal, I enjoyed how salty Jamie Carragher was in commentary about Trent Alexander-Arnold yesterday. Did he have a good game? No, clearly not, but the ‘I hope Real Madrid aren’t watching!’ line was gold. As if they’d change their minds at this point. They’ve clearly done all the ground work for a summer freebie, and they’re not signing him for his defending anyway. Fun stuff.

Right, there is a press conference later ahead of our Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle tomorrow evening. Will we get an update on the Ethan Nwaneri injury? We’ll have to wait and see, and we’ll bring you all the updates and stories over on Arseblog News.

We’re gonna have an Arsecast Extra for you in a little while too. We’ve put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.

Pod should be out around noon. For now, have a good one.

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