Arsenal vs Liverpool Report: Defense Exposed Late Again

Arsenal vs Liverpool FINAL 2-2.

Well, this game caused plenty of emotional distress. The first half was completely dominated by Liverpool, who controlled around 70% of possession. They grabbed the lead in stoppage time before half but a mere minute and a half later, Mathieu Debuchy notched his first goal for Arsenal and leveled the game before the half.

The second half was a little more balanced, but that’s not saying much.

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Olivier Giroud continued his unbelievable streak by pumping in a goal in the 65th minute from another excellent pass by Santi Cazorla. Both of whom looked incredibly brilliant today.

In the 82nd minute, Arsene Wenger decided to park the bus and remove Giroud, a decision that had me groaning because Arsenal’s defense had looked grossly exposed all game. Lazar Markovic had had free reign down the right side and it felt like Liverpool had all the room in the world for the gross majority of the game.

I didn’t see how Francis Coquelin would solve that issue.

In typical Arsenal fashion, a set piece did us in in that dreaded 97th minute. In another display of why zone marking should never be used in any circumstance ever, Martin Skrtel, who is the largest man on Liverpool and the biggest threat from set pieces, was inexplicably unmarked and when you leave a head like that unmarked, it’s going to come back to hurt you.

And it did. And we dropped two points.

Granted, with how awful Arsenal looked for the majority of the game, you would have every right to say that Arsenal were lucky to get out with a draw, but the fact remains that we had the lead with less than five minutes to go and we failed to see it through to close.

Arsene Wenger has to see how grossly exposed his team was today and he has to make adjustments.

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