Arsenal vs. Liverpool score: How Diogo Jota, Roberto Firmino punished Gunners’ errors to boost Reds’ title bid

LONDON — The old cliche is that champions win when they are not playing well. That may well still be true but this was a rather different display to burnish Liverpool’s title credentials. They played well against an opponent who, for much of this game, looked capable of matching them. And Liverpool won anyway, beating Arsenal, 2-0, to move to within one point of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.

Such is the joy of having players who only need an inch, a moment to swing a game in their favor. This might very plausibly have ended with Arsenal victorious, Martin Odegaard bending the ball into the net to punish a sloppy play by Thiago. The hosts let that moment slip away and they were mercilessly shredded for it.

Within the blink of an eye Arsenal had reverted to type: no longer Liverpool’s equal but a wreck, simply unable to protect their box as first Diogo Jota and then Roberto Firmino struck. It is to Mikel Arteta’s credit that that period was the exception in this game. For much of it Thomas Partey was running the show in midfield, Ben White marshaling a composed defense and Gabriel Martinelli bringing quicksilver thrust to the attack.

Klopp rarely lets a meeting between these two pass by without garlanding the young Brazilian with all the praise he can muster. It is easy to see why. One moment he would be hurtling back toward his own goal, showing the burst of pace to ensure Trent Alexander-Arnold could not flex his creative muscles. The next he was hurtling upfield, causing devastation wherever he roamed down Liverpool’s right.

He looked every inch a player who would merit a place in this most devastating of forward lines. In the meantime though, they should be alright. With Mohamed Salah only fit enough for a spot on the bench it was up to others to deliver. For a time they were struggling to do so, not aided by a supply line that was not as consistent as usual. Jota dropped deeper in an attempt to alleviate the creative burden but it led to too many wasted passes in the driving rain.

Sadio Mane, something of a cult villain around these parts for previously unpunished collisions, did himself no favors by falling too easily onto the Emirates turf. A generous assessment might be that he was struggling to find his footing in the rain. It would be generous indeed. It was not one Klopp would agree with.

“I’m sick of it that you just take a player out,” said the Liverpool manager. “Maybe somebody can explain to me why he doesn’t get free kicks. People say he’s a diver. He’s not.”

The first half zipped along at a fair pace but the sensation was of two teams cancelling each other out. That is progress for Arsenal, so often cancelled by Liverpool. They shaded the first 50 or so minutes but until Odegaard’s miss Alisson had precious little with which to concern himself.

He could thank those ahead of him for that. Fabinho throttled Martin Odegaard whilst Andrew Robertson did much the same to Bukayo Saka. There were moments where it looked like Liverpool might not be able to whack sufficient Arsenal moles, such was the threat posed by Martinelli, but he alone could not carry the day.

The moment slipped away from Arsenal with a flick of Alisson’s wrists. A loose pass back by Thiago allowed Alexandre Lacazette to nip in ahead of Liverpool’s goalkeeper. As always seems to be the case with the Frenchman he was not in an optimum position to take a shot but he instead teed up Odegaard. A first-time strike might have been too much to stop though perhaps the pass could have come to him in stride. Even with a touch he should have scored but his shot was too close to Alisson, whose giant glove deflected it to safety.

“We needed a wake up call, an alarm bell from Thiago increasing the excitement level a lot,” said Klopp. “From there we did a lot of things better.”

Such profligacy is invariably punished by Liverpool, who would not have let a chance like that pass them by. None of Arsenal’s mistakes were as egregious as Thiago’s. That hardly mattered. The Spaniard was left with too much space in midfield: error one. He picked out Diogo Jota who fired low at the near post. Aaron Ramsdale might have done better: error two. Eight minutes later, after chaos in the area as Firmino was allowed to charge along the byline, Cedric charged upfield on the assumption that Saka’s clearance would find an Arsenal teammate: error three. And then White let Firmino run across him. Four mistakes, none of them necessarily woeful, but with them the game was gone.

That is the mark of the very best teams, the differentiating factor between a good Arsenal team and a great Liverpool. For the former this need not be critical to their chances of finishing fourth. They are still three points ahead of Tottenham, 2-0 winners at Brighton on Wednesday night, with games in hand on all of the chasing pack. There is, however, a tight turnaround for Saturday’s trip to Villa Park. Mikel Arteta was not best impressed.

“Thank you so much to the Premier League to do that,” Arteta told CBS Sports. “They’ve done it again when we have to play Chelsea and Manchester United. They want to give them any advantage. 

“The players on Saturday will be there with energy. They will sleep, eat well. But thank you so much to the Premier League for putting the fixtures like this. Very, very helpful.”

He added: “Did we speak to the Premier League? Yes absolutely. It is not fair what they’ve done. It’s BT, it’s Sky, it’s this, it’s that. The one that’s affected is Arsenal. That’s the only thing I care about. For Arsenal it’s not fair.”

What this will mean for Klopp is for now unknowable with such razor fine margins between his side and Manchester City. “I really don’t think a lot about City,” he said. “I know the only chance we have is to win an incredible amount of football games.

“The last few years we’ve pushed each other to incredible levels. We get 90 points because they get 90 points.” Liverpool could hit even greater heights than they did in their best moments tonight and still not win the title. But if they do we may yet look back on this game as among the consummate performances of this excellent season, one where they emphatically won the moments as any champion must do.