Deluded Arsenal fans are just kidding themselves

Being a Liverpool fan isn’t easy. A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with a high blood pressure, and ever since I have been going to the gym in order to reduce it. Tuesday night, however, would have outdone all those hours of grunting on the cross-trainer and the treadmill. I have never cried watching Liverpool, hell, I have never cried watching football. There are so many better things to shed tears over than that. But last night, the moment Steven Gerrard’s penalty rocketed past Manuel Almunia, it was as close as I have ever been to being reduced to tears. Not really out of joy, or triumph, but because of sheer relief. Emmanuel Adebayor’s late goal was a dagger through the hearts of many Liverpool fans, and Gerrard’s penalty brought with a heady mixture of joy, shock, and unspeakable relief.

After the match I expected Arsenal fans to bleat about how they were robbed, and how the world is against them, and poor Arsenal are the unluckiest team in the universe. What I didn’t expect though, was that people would be saying that Arsenal were the better team over the trilogy of matches played between the two sides. Most pundits even agree with them. Did they really see the same game that I saw? I mean, I am a Liverpool fan, but that does not lessen my ability to watch Liverpool matches with an unbiased eye. So I shall attempt to deconstruct their arguments, and create a less ’romantic’ opinion of what actually happened.

Firstly, I didn’t see the Premier League match against Arsenal, and have only seen the goals, so I can’t comment on that. But having watched both Champions League matches, I can say that Arsenal were unfortunate to only draw at the Emirates. They started well, scored, and then suffered a lapse in concentration right after the goal, and Kuyt scored. Liverpool were perhaps the more dominant force from then on until half time. The second half however, was just Arsenal at their best. Free-flowing football, combined with pace and power. They had the better of the first half, but I do not recall José Reina having that much to do. How did Arsenal deserve to win that match, if they didn’t have that many shots on goal? Just because the ball didn’t roll into the net of its own accord, all of a sudden Gooners are throwing their toys out of the pram?

Anyway, roll on the second leg. Again, Arsenal battered us with passing and exquisite flair and deservedly went a goal up (no matter what the commentator said, Reina could do little with Diaby’s shot). But barely 16 minutes later, another defensive lapse enabled Sami Hyypia to loop in a quite marvellous header. Like at the Emirates, Liverpool evened the game out possession, and territorially after the equaliser, and the teams went in all-square in more or less every sense of the word. In the second half, Liverpool truly carried out the game-plan that Benitez undoubtedly laid out at the start of the match. The passing was crisp, the movement was good, and the back line, strong. Most of the football was played in the Arsenal half of the pitch. All of a sudden, Liverpool seemed to be having the upper hand. But Arsenal played that out, and gradually started to come back into it. So I guess it seemed on the cards, that they should be outdone by a long-ball down the pitch, a slight touch from Crouch directed it in a Torres-wise direction. The Spaniard then went into the penalty-area, turned, and unleashed a vicious shot past Almunia. Anfield erupted. Spirits soared as Liverpool took the lead aggregately, and in terms of the actual match, for the first time in the tie.

The drama was not over yet though. Arsene Wenger played his two remaining substitutions by bringing on Robin Van Persie and Theo Walcott. If Arsenal had gone through, the entire match would have been remembered for Theo Walcott’s Harlem Globetrotters moment. The BBC player rate had him as the top-rate player at the end of the match, although his assist was pretty much his sole contribution. But what an assist it was. This rather puny-looking teenager, only a few months older than I am, took on four senior Liverpool players - that included Mascherano, Alonso and Hyypia, all of whom are considered as top-class tacklers - and beat them all up a stick. His run relied purely on pace, indeed it was in essence, just a straight line, until he veered slightly to the right in the penalty-box in order to make space for Adebayor to score after a cute lay-off. That should have been the end of the matter. Adebayor runs to the Arsenal fans (it was one of those moments Arsenal players actually acknowledged their own fans), and told them to provide a little more back-chat to the boisterous Liverpool fans. I think they probably did at that stage, but it was their turn to stand and stare when Ryan Babel went down just a few minutes later.

Now, please don’t be fooled into thinking that two wrongs make a right here. The difference between Ryan Babel going down at Anfield, and Hleb going down at the Emirates, was that the Dutchman went down as if he had been fouled (and he had), and the Belarusian went down as if he had been mauled by a pregnant grizzly bear. Hleb did us a major favour by thinking that he could fall to the floor like he did. The referee would have seen him going down theatrically, and decided that it was a dive. Hleb’s first priority in the penalty area, was to go down first, rather than have a shot. Babel on the other hand, had it in mind to have a shot first, and go down second. It showed, and it was definitely a penalty.

I must scoff at people who say that because the Hleb incident was not given, the Babel incident should not as well? Was the referee on Tuesday supposed to purposefully give the wrong decision purely because another referee give a wrong decision, in another match, in another stadium, in another situation? Its truly is preposterous. Besides, if Liverpool’s penalty was not a penalty, then surely Hleb going down was not a penalty either? But if it was a spot-kick, then Liverpool’s penalty definitely was a penalty. It is a case of rose-tinted glasses in the extreme, from the Gooners. Ultimately, the incident was rendered slightly less relevant in the larger-scale of things by Ryan Babel shrugging off Cesc Fabregas, and neatly firing home to hand the Reds a 5-3 aggregate win.

The main point of this article was to put the proceedings over the two legs into a much fairer context than it is at the moment. To say Arsenal dominated Liverpool from start to finish in both games, to be frank, is telling tales. Both keepers didn’t have a lot to do, and much of the attacking play was played in front of the defenders. Ultimately, it was Liverpool’s superior composure that won them the game. You will not find a sweeter strike than Fernando Torres’, and you will be hard-pushed to find more courage, balls, and sheer determination and strength of character shown by Steven Gerrard when he strode up to take that spot-kick. No player is irreplaceable, but he is as close as it gets.

So to sum up, if Arsenal truly were as dominant as most Arsenal fans like to think, then two completely isolated incidents should not have matter so much? The fact is, that they did - they were vital moments in the match. And what made them so completely and utterly crucial was the fact that there was so little to choose between the teams. And that is the true story of how the tie was played.