Arsenal missed a chance to go eight points clear at the top of the table after Thursday's 0-0 draw with Liverpool. Football writer Alex Keble looks at the result's implications for the title race.
Winning the Premier League title does not require 38 memorable moments, nor does it require 38 victories. There is every chance that come May, Arsenal supporters will be grateful for a gritty, hard-fought, rain-soaked point against champions Liverpool.
Arne Slot’s side will certainly be satisfied with the performance and result, extending their unbeaten run to 10 matches in all competitions and earning an impressive clean sheet, the first a visiting side has managed on this ground in the 2025/26 campaign.
Arsenal remain in Liverpool-esque command of the title race
Seeing the glum faces of Arsenal supporters and hearing the silence around Emirates Stadium at full-time, you might think they had just witnessed a damaging defeat.
That anxiety is understandable. We are now in that unnerving mid-season slog, when the gloomy weather adds to the feeling of stasis, of the Premier League locked in a tense holding pattern until the run-in begins.
But as they reflect upon the game, Arsenal fans will likely see the positives in a result that maintains a six-point gap to Manchester City after their rivals drew 1-1 with Brighton & Hove Albion 24 hours earlier.
They will be even more optimistic when they see the statistics underlying their current league position.
Looking back on the last five Premier League seasons, Arsenal’s tally of 49 points is aligned with previous league-leaders at the 21-game mark. More importantly, they are only one point worse-off than Liverpool last season – and have the same gap (six points) to the team in second.
Leaders after 21 matches, last six PL seasons
| Team | Season | Pts | Pts above 2nd | Final posn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Man City | 20/21 | 47 | 2 | 1 |
| Man City | 21/22 | 53 | 10 | 1 |
| Arsenal | 22/23 | 51 | 3 | 2 |
| Liverpool | 23/24 | 48 | 2 | 3 |
| Liverpool | 24/25 | 50 | 6 | 1 |
| Arsenal | 25/26 | 49 | 6 | - |
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Liverpool ran away with the title last season, so it is easy to forget they weren’t always miles ahead. But at this stage of the campaign, they simply looked like a more complete team than any of their challengers – just as Arsenal do now.
That comparison is important, and one the Emirates crowd might need to hear, because some of the nervousness on Thursday evening appeared to impact a game that swung wildly from Arsenal pressure in the first half to Liverpool pressure in the second.
Liverpool’s second-half improvements successfully stunt Arsenal
The first 45 minutes were defined by almost constant Arsenal attacks as Liverpool chose to sit very deep in a 4-4-2 formation, only engaging in their own third and – even more unusually – deploying a man-to-man marking system in open play that meant they were pulled into all sorts of strange shapes.
Arteta said after the match he saw Liverpool’s low block coming, and indeed Arsenal failed to score for the first time since the reverse fixture in August. Meanwhile, Liverpool were unable to land a shot on target in a Premier League match for the first time since March 2010, with tonight being their 600th game in the competition since.
But Arsenal, allowed to attack relentlessly down Bukayo Saka’s side, were unable to take advantage, and Liverpool survived to the break. Arteta must have assumed that more of the same was coming and, with the crowd behind them, the goal inevitable.
It wasn’t to be, primarily because Slot changed things at the break. For the second half, Liverpool pushed higher, engaging the Arsenal centre-backs rather than dropping off, which – coupled with a powerful, press-resistant display from Ryan Gravenberch – got them up the pitch and in possession.
And once they were in possession, suddenly Slot’s striker-less 4-4-2 made sense. Florian Wirtz and Dominik Szoboszlai provided a numerical advantage in midfield, explaining why Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi struggled to get on the ball in the second half.
Those minor tweaks from Slot were enough to swing the momentum completely.
Arsenal v Liverpool first v second-half comparison
| Half | Possn | Shots | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Arsenal | 60% | 6 |
| Liverpool | 40% | 3 | |
| 2nd | Arsenal | 35% | 3 |
| Liverpool | 65% | 5 |
Arsenal angst shows toughness of psychological battle
The Gunners, of course, might be slightly concerned by how Liverpool managed to do so, and again this comes back to the psychological test they face as they try to win their first title in over 20 years.
A bit of fragility seeped in, and with the crowd quietening as their concern grew, hesitancy began to infect the Arsenal players. We also saw this in a telling key flashpoint of the first half.
Having dominated completely for half an hour, just a minute or two of Liverpool possession was all it took for the atmosphere to change entirely. There was fear in the air – and it caught on, leading to the moment William Saliba and David Raya slipped up and Conor Bradley chipped a shot on to the crossbar.
Arsenal survived, but barely threatened again until the death. There was a 55-minute gap between their final shot of the first half and first shot of the second, in the eighth minute of stoppage time, after which another brief period of pressure got the crowd back up again.
Should the crowd have provided more energy, or should the players have kept up theirs to inspire the fans? That is up for debate. What isn’t is that Arsenal were a tad nervous.
A draw, however, was a fair result – and a good enough one in the context of the title race. But the pressure on Arsenal will only intensify from here. How they handle it will define their season.