For 40 minutes of Sunday’s game against league leaders Arsenal, Liverpool looked like they have looked away from home for a little too many games this season. There was little splash, the away team led 2-0, and the Reds seemed to sleep into another disappointing performance.
It was also very quiet in the stands – as it can be when the team plays poorly, does not create anything and time simply passes.
But then there was an episode that set Anfield on fire. Granit Xhaka and Trent Alexander-Arnold ended up in a huddle on the touchline, and after that it was much more like the “old Liverpool” that we have become accustomed to, both on the pitch and in the stands.
– When the Anfield crowd is asleep, you don’t wake them up. You leave them alone. Xhaka woke up the crowd, said Gary Neville from the commentator’s place in Sky Sports’ broadcast.
– I just can’t understand why he did it, not at all. It would have been a big part of Mikel Arteta’s pre-team speech. The fact that players lay down a bit to waste time was sensible, but the audience woke up here, he continued.
See the situation below:
Not the first time
That this happened exactly in a match between Liverpool and Arsenal is a bit strange – since the same thing also happened last season. Back then, it was Mikel Arteta who got into an argument with Jürgen Klopp, and made Anfield really loud. Back then, the Reds eventually won 4-0, but it had long been a close and uneventful match.
– It was very reminiscent of the home game against Arsenal last season, when it was a rather boring game where not much happened, and Liverpool struggled to come to life before Mikel Arteta chose to argue with Klopp on the sidelines. On Sunday, they can thank Granit Xhaka, said James Pearce in The Athletics podcast “Walk On”.
The situation with Arteta and Klopp in 2021:
– You also have to give praise to Klopp’s players and how they responded, because they got a helping hand from that moment. It just made it much more incendiary, tougher, and confrontational. It gave the supporters someone to rally against, and someone to rally behind, so it was hardly a coincidence that it only took a few minutes for Liverpool to reduce. That set the tone for the second half, he says.
As the match developed, and especially towards the end, it was Liverpool who came closest to victory and all three points. It finally ended 2-2 this time.
– I know that’s the way Xhaka plays, but I think it was incredibly stupid of him, because if you’re Arsenal in that situation, leading 2-0 and in full control, then for me it was just stupid to wake the beast, Pearce said.
