Arsenal and Liverpool Remain Unbeaten, Fox Soccer Channel Confused

By: Daryl | October 28th, 2007

“Well Arsenal’s 12 game unbeaten streak in all competitions is over,” said that strange voice that cuts into Fox Soccer Channel’s Premier League broadcasts at the final whistle, “as they come away with a 1-1 draw, right here at Anfield, Cesc Fabregas’ late goal the difference.” There are so many things wrong with that sentence - factually, grammatically and semantically - that I don’t know where to start. Better to ponder over what was a thoroughly entertaining game between two of the big boys, which did indeed end 1-1, but with no one scoring the goal that was “the difference” and both teams unbeaten Premiership records still very much in tact.

Rafa’s selection policy took another turn for the weird. He chose three strikers but played two of them (Kuyt and Voronin) as wingers, essentially going one up front in a home game. The big problem was that the lonely centre forward was Fernando Torres, not exactly a target man and not exactly fit. He barely made it to half time before Rafa was forced to bring him off for Peter Crouch. In midfield Xabi Alonso was also asked to play, despite not being fully recovered from his recent injury. Like Torres, he looked out of sorts and succumbed to injury long before the final whistle.

What Liverpool did have was an early Steven Gerrard free kick, blasted through Arsenal defenders and into the back of the net for a 1-0 lead. Arsenal seemed to have a lot more of the ball and passed it beautifully with lots of one-twos and first time passes, but Liverpool got lots of men back and were organized enough to prevent Arsenal carving out any big openings, while launching several counter attacks, often with hopeless long balls.

Though it would be difficult to argue Liverpool were the better team, or even deserved their lead, they did have several further shots on goal. Gerrard brought a great save out of Almunia with a longe range rocket, Crouch had the keeper diving with a well struck shot and Riise hit the top of the net with one of his left foot volleys. Meanwhile Arsenal continued to play flowing football without any end result.

Until the 80th minute, when Hleb flicked a clever through ball for Fabregas, who ran through and poked it past Reina for the equaliser before celebrating with one of those knee slides that always look like an injury waiting to happen. Liverpool had hung on, but for all Rafa’s rotation they looked a tired team in the last 20 minutes, possibly from chasing the ball around as Arsenal moved it so quickly. So a draw then, and the Premiership’s last two unbeaten teams remain unbeaten, but I’m marking it as a moral victory for an Arsenal team that played the more attractive and more enterprising football.

Even better we can now begin the countdown to an even bigger game next weekend. A proper six pointer where first place Arsenal host second place Manchester United at the Emirates with both teams level on points.