A draw at Anfield that suits nobody, least of all Arsenal

Liverpool 1 Arsenal 1 reads like a fair result and was not one. Arsenal had the better of ninety minutes, led at the break, and spent the second half slowly handing the initiative back.

The second-half shift

Liverpool changed the game with a single positional adjustment: pushing their left-sided midfielder higher to occupy Arsenal’s holding player. It cost them some control in front of their own box and gained them a great deal in the opposition half. Arsenal’s response was to drop deeper, which is what they do when they are protecting something, and it did not work here.

The equaliser came from the pattern that adjustment created — a ball into the half-space that would not have been available in the first half. It was not a surprise by the time it arrived.

Why Arsenal will be more annoyed

Two points dropped at Anfield is not a crisis. Two points dropped from a winning position in a fixture you controlled, against a direct rival, in a season where the margin at the top has been a point or two for three years running — that is the kind of result managers remember in May.

Arsenal stay top. Liverpool stay within touching distance. The table barely moved and the mood did.