Liverpool 4 Arsenal 2
Arsene Wenger is an attacking coach who plays stylish football with young players. No other Champions League coach does that.
But he doesn’t teach defence, so he is the architect of his own downfall. If you don’t teach defence, you have to buy defenders who know how to defend.
THE FOUR GOALS CONCEDED :
1-1 : Senderos mistake, Hyypia heads in.
2-1 Senderos mistake, Torres fires unstoppable shot
3-2 Toure’s clumsy challenge fells Babel in the box. Less of a clear-cut foul than the Kuyt tug on Hleb’s arm but the ref gives it.
4-2. Chasing the game with nine players forward, Babel breaks away from tired Fabregas and knocks in the fourth goal.
First 20 minutes, Arsenal were fantastic.
Their fast passing gave them flying start and Rafa had picked the wrong team, changing it to 4-4-2 with Crouch &Torres and Gerrard on the left. Rafa didn’t need to make that tactical change and it allowed Arsenal to swarm all over Liverpool and take the lead with a fine goal by Diaby in 13.
Good move, great finish. A helluva shot that went in off Reina’s knee. It’s dim to say Reina was beaten at his near post. It was a rocket shot from pointblank range that flashed into the net. Superb goal. If the rocket shot had hit Reina’s chest it would have been dim to say he made a great save.
For half an hour in their biggest game of the season, Arsenal were giving their best performance of the season.
On 30, they conceded. Senderos wasn’t even watching the ball when Hyypia conned him and headed a corner in off the post. A thunderous header from the six foot four inch Finn who is 34 and by far the best player Houllier ever bought.
This second leg was high-energy combat with passion, pace, skill, mistakes, near-misses – a proper football match, as vibrant as they come.
Flamini went off just before half-time, Gilberto came on. That suited Liverpool.
It was 1-1 in the third match of The Trilogy but it never looked like being 1-1 and extra time. Liverpool dominated in the second half as Arsenal created almost nothing, having lost a lot when Flamini went off. If he had not been injured, who knows?His exit created a perfect job for Lassana Diarra, I thought. But Diarra is in an FA Cup Final now with Portsmouth.
Torres’s movement was phenomenal but he did not threaten until 69. Route 1, Reina’s big boot again, Crouch and Gallas jumped, both missed it, ball bounced, Torres chested the ball and turned and scored a world class goal to make it 2-1. The lumbering Senderos never got anywhere near him. Fernando Torres left his beloved Atletico Madrid to play Champions League football and he has 29 goals so far in his first season for Liverpool. 29 in 40 games is good shooting. Worth £26 million? Absolutely !
Van Persie came on for Diaby, Walcott for Eboue.
Adebayor was suddenly beyond the defence when Hleb’s probing pass the ball came through but he lunged and stabbed the ball wide.Liverpool were finding their men with every pass now, looking good.
Then Gerrard tried a left foot volley in the D, missed the ball completely, Theo Walcott picked it up, zoomed past Alonso, then Fabio Aurelio, outpaced the chasing Mascherano, evaded Hyypia, and placed a low pass-cross behind Skrtel to give Adebayor a tap-in past the advancing Reina for 2-2. A phenomenal 80-yard slalom.
Arsenal had three players in scoring positions when the cross came in. The ball went straight to the first one and Ade slotted. At that moment the introduction of Walcott looked like the greatest substitution since Henrik Larsson in Paris.
Within two minutes, sub Ryan Babel dribbled into the box from the left flank, Toure impeded him clumsily, and Babel went down. In most of these incidents, the attacker is looking for contact. Was Babel was trying to get away from Toure and stay on his feet? He was sprinting into the box with the ball and if anybody touches him he will be unbalanced because he is a six foot winger running at speed. You could say it was a “soft” penalty. But we’ve seen dozens softer. In a floodlit game at Anfield, you don’t touch any Liverpool player who is sprinting inside the box. Simple as that. You say : OK, you’ve beaten me, now beat my keeper.
In 85, Stevie G slotted the pressure penalty for 3-2.
So Theo Walcott had made Arsenal heroes for two minutes before Kolo Toure made them dunces.
In 92, with Arsenal chasing the game at the other end, and with Fabregas last man, Babel broke away and fired past Almunia for a brutal 4-2 scoreline. This game can be cruel.
Arsene Wenger had a face like thunder. His rage was palpable. He whinged, of course, saying it was never a penalty.
In complete contrast, the likeable, candid, realistic skipper Stevie G said, “Arsenal are a fantastic team. At times they passed us off the pitch. That was possibly one of the worst performances I’ve ever put in in a Liverpool shirt.”
I really, really hope Liverpool beat the oligarch’s Chelski in the semi-final.
For Arsene Wenger, next season starts today.
Forget about Old Trafford on Sunday, it’s irrelevant. This pulsating drama, these six goals, defined Arsenal’s season. In these 94 minutes we saw the best and worst of Arsenal 2007-2008. This 4-2 defeat told us everything we need to know about what has to be done to improve the Arsenal squad.
After the game I had several phone calls.
My Essex-based Gooner pal Kelvin was one of them.
“Haven’t I been saying for two years Senderos isn’t good enough?”
“It’s not just him. Which of these players would get into the Invincibles team of 2004?”
“Clichy?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s not a patch on Ashley Cole in his prime.”
Arsenal have won two of their last 12 games.
Apparently, Liam Brady was watching the game in RTE’s Dublin studios when Eamonn Dunphy said Wenger was like John Cleese. Brady walked out of the studio.
Dunphy is a bright but bitter little man who would have loved to have the career Liam Brady had.