Harvey Elliott reacts after a missed chance in Liverpool

Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal: No such thing as a good draw as Reds miss BIG chance

December 23, 2023 Sports 16 Views

An intense match that ended in a draw and a result that ultimately was only really good for Manchester City.

As the full-time whistle blew at Anfield, Trent Alexander-Arnold put his head in his hands, knowing too well that his missed chance with 15 minutes to go was one that will be keeping him awake at night.

Liverpool broke five-vs-two and Mo Salah picked the right pass, but Alexander-Arnold opted to go high over David Raya rather than slot the ball in past the ‘keeper.

The Liverpool right-back said post-match that he thought it hit a bump, but as Klopp admitted: “With that chance we should have won the game.”

“We were lucky not to concede a goal,” admitted Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta post-match when speaking about the chance.

Before that, Liverpool were denied a penalty for handball by Martin Odegaard. Quite how the watching VAR, David Coote, decided not to even send the referee to the monitor is yet another for the Premier League referee’s baffling decisions list.

The miss from Trent and the non-penalty decision will be the main talking points, but overall it was a high-quality match between the top two sides at Christmas.

“One of the best Liverpool sides I have seen,” praised Arteta, who remarked on an “unbelievable game of football”.

For Liverpool, though, two home games and two draws means four points dropped at a time when they could have moved further ahead of Man City.

Instead, City arrive back from their Club World Cup trip to Saudi Arabia only five points behind Klopp’s side and with a game in hand.

The Boxing Day round of fixtures marks the halfway point of the season. Liverpool would certainly have taken this position before the season begun, but there’s a slight sense of what might have been had they not drawn more games (six) than any side in the top eight.

Indeed, Liverpool have the joint most draws in the league – and those draws have proven very costly in title races before for the Reds.