Liverpool 0, Arsenal 1: 48 Touches in the Box and Nothing to Show for It

I went into this one with a single question: is Liverpool actually going to contend this season? Last game before the international break, at Anfield, against the team everybody has finishing top two. If you wanted a barometer for where Iraola's Liverpool really are, this was it. I got my answer. Liverpool had 56% of the ball, took 17 shots to Arsenal's 10, and touched the ball in Arsenal's box 48 times to their 23. FotMob has 0 of those 17 shots on target. Sofascore is a little kinder and gives them 1. Either way, Kai Havertz scored in the 16th minute, that was the whole game, and Arsenal left Anfield with their first league win there in 14 years. Liverpool aren't a bad team. They're a team that looks dangerous without being dangerous, and right now that gap is the difference between them and a title race.

Kai Havertz is always offside. I wrote that down in the 9th minute and laughed, and seven minutes later he was the one celebrating. The goal started with Alisson. His pass out from the back was loose, Ødegaard read it, the ball went to Madueke, and Declan Rice did the work nobody watching on TV notices: he ran all the way around Madueke on the overlap and fizzed a low ball across the face of goal. Havertz just had to be standing at the back post. He was. One shot all game, one goal, and FotMob put it at 0.63 xG, which tells you how much of that goal was Rice.

For the first 22 minutes, Bradley Barcola was Liverpool's man of the match, and I said before kickoff he needed to start validating that price tag with a goal contribution. He put a ball across in the 20th minute that someone had to get on the end of, and Timber gave him a little shirt tug on the way. He got 14 touches in Arsenal's box, double Wirtz's 7. If he kept that going, I thought there was definitely a goal in it. There wasn't. He finished with 1 shot, 0 of his 4 crosses found a teammate, he won 5 of his 16 ground duels, and he got booked in first-half stoppage time. That's the whole Liverpool performance in one player: all the territory, none of the end product.

The best spell Liverpool had was the 20 minutes after they went behind, and I still don't know how they didn't score. From the 25th minute it was all Liverpool. Kerkez put in a horrible cross with all the time in the world, then tracked back and defended Madueke so badly in his own box that he nearly handed Arsenal a second. There was a counter in the 33rd minute they should've done something better with. It went end to end and I was sure there'd be another goal before half. In the 38th minute Wirtz whipped a free kick from a tight angle past Raya and off the crossbar. Then right before the break Mac Allister ran into the box completely unmarked to meet a Kerkez cross and headed it over from 8 yards. That was Liverpool's only big chance of the game. They missed it, and 9 of their 17 shots never even reached the goal because an Arsenal body got in the way.

Which brings me to Florian Wirtz. Is he any good? Right now, no. At what Liverpool paid, he's already a flop. The only question left is whether he can turn it around, and that free kick is the reason people keep saying he can. But he's been given a lot of time, and games like this are exactly where he needs to start showing up. Take the free kick away and here's what's left: 3 shots, 0 on target, 0 chances created, 0 of 2 dribbles completed, and 3 ground duels won out of 11. Iraola took him off in the 81st minute. A No. 10 who can't create a single chance in a game where his team has 56% of the ball isn't playing like a No. 10.

I was interested to watch Trey Nyoni, on his first Premier League start, and in the moment it looked like a kid scared of being out of position. He didn't want to go higher and leave his post at all. He never stepped into space to help the build-up, so Virgil van Dijk ended up stepping into midfield while Nyoni dropped off behind him. Looking back, I don't think that was nerves. I think Iraola told him to sit deep and he did exactly what he was told, and the numbers back that up: 53 of 55 passes completed and 14 line-breaking passes, all from the same spot. He did the job he was given. The job just created 0 chances, and Szoboszlai replaced him in the 59th minute. Van Dijk, meanwhile, is still so good. In the 14th minute I wrote that he just covers all the space and is so sound all the time, and he finished with 80 touches and 8 of 8 aerial duels won. When your center back is carrying your midfield, though, that's a structure problem, not a compliment.

The second half was worse. Liverpool couldn't hold the ball for the first 5 minutes, found a good spell around the 50th, and kept running through Arsenal around the 66th, but they never turned any of it into a real chance. Arsenal were barely in the game, then nearly made it 2-0 in the 68th, and had a strong spell up to the 70th minute while Kerkez was off the pitch, with Calafiori going up the field and nearly providing an assist. Alisson made a great save from Tzolis to keep it at 1-0. At one point Van Dijk and Araújo were Liverpool's best attackers, which is not a sentence you want to read about a team chasing a game at home. Isak needed to be doing a lot more. He had 26 touches and 2 shots, none on target. Barcola faded too. Rio Ngumoha came on in the 67th minute and was the one Liverpool player who looked like he wanted to make something happen. He had as many shots in 23 minutes as Isak had in 90.

Then around the 80th minute it got stupid. Mac Allister tapped Ødegaard on the back of the head, squared up to Madueke, went down, and we all had to sit through a VAR review of the whole thing. Boring. Just get on with it. It ended with yellow cards for Mac Allister and Timber, and the yellow was the right call. Not a red. That made it 8 bookings in the game, 4 each. Timber had been flirting with giving away a penalty all day and I was waiting for it. It never came. I wouldn't have changed anything about Liverpool's subs: Szoboszlai, Ngumoha, then Tsimikas, Muñoz and Koumas all at once in the 81st minute. The interesting one was Lewis Koumas, bringing the kid on to chase a game at home. With 10 minutes plus 6 of stoppage time to build on, they built nothing.

Credit where it's due: Arsenal played a great defensive game. The ratings on this one come from Ben Davenport, an Arsenal fan, so take the love with a pinch of salt, but he's right about the top of the list. Declan Rice was the best player on the pitch. Ben had him at 85, and FotMob agreed, giving him player of the match at 8.1. He made the goal, completed 38 of 44 passes and won 4 tackles. Behind him, Ezri Konsa won all 7 of his ground duels, made 8 clearances and wasn't dribbled past once. Ødegaard, who I'd heard was having a good season, didn't impress me, and even Ben only gave him a 55. Bruno Guimarães got a 50 from him despite a great tackle early. This wasn't Arsenal playing well with the ball. It was Arsenal deciding that 1-0 was enough and making Liverpool prove otherwise.

So, can Liverpool contend? Not like this. Not good enough from Pool in the second half, and they didn't create anything of real substance against a back line that sat in and cleared 36 balls. A team that wins the league finds a way to put one of 17 shots on target at home. Arsenal go into the international break looking like a side that knows how to win ugly at the hardest ground in the country. This league has been theirs to lose, and nothing today changed that. Liverpool go into it with a lot of possession, a crossbar, and the same question I walked in with.