PHILIPPE COUTINHO HIT the woodwork twice and Aaron Ramsey had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside as Liverpool and Arsenal had to settle for a goalless draw in an entertaining Premier League encounter on Monday.
Liverpool have now won only once at the Emirates Stadium in 13 visits, but they should have been out of sight at half-time as Coutinho struck the crossbar and a post.
Petr Cech endured a miserable home debut when Arsenal were beaten by West Ham, but the former Chelsea goalkeeper produced an outstanding save to tip Coutinho’s effort against the woodwork and another to deny Christian Benteke.
Ramsey rightly felt hard done by when he found the back of the net but was adjudged to be offside, with replays showing the goal should have counted.
Arsenal were vulnerable at the back in the absence of injured centre-backs Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, with Gabriel Paulista and Calum Chambers far from convincing.
Arsene Wenger’s side improved after the break, but were unable to follow up their win at Crystal Palace with another victory as Liverpool kept a third clean sheet of the season after 1-0 wins over Stoke City and Bournemouth
Roberto Firmino made his first Liverpool start, with Lucas Leiva and Emre Can also coming into the side as captain Jordan Henderson and fellow midfielder Adam Lallana missed out due to injury and Jordon Ibe dropped to the bench.
Arsenal’s new central defensive pairing were caught out just two minutes in, when Coutinho’s shot from inside the box struck the crossbar after Benteke was allowed too much time and space to race away and the cut the ball back to the Brazil midfielder.
Ramsey was aggrieved when he had the ball in the back of the net eight minutes later after stand-in skipper Santi Cazorla picked him out with a fine pass, but the flag was up when the midfielder appeared to have timed his run to perfection.
Chambers was indebted to a vital last-ditch tackle from Francis Coquelin to deny Coutinho after the former Southampton man had gifted possession to the playmaker with a terrible pass.
Cech showed his class with an outstanding save to deny Benteke from close range seven minutes before the break when the Belgium striker should have opened the scoring.
The Czech Republic keeper also thwarted stand-in Liverpool captain James Milner and there were more heroics from Cech just before half-time, when he got a fingertip to a measured strike from the dangerous Coutinho which struck the far post.
Alexis Sanchez ought to have made the visitors pay for wasting so many chances when the Chile forward fired wide of the near post following some neat build-up play early in the second half.
Firmino was replaced by Ibe after 62 minutes and it was Arsenal who looked the more likely to go on and secure all three points, as Simon Mignolet produced a fine save at full stretch to palm away Olivier Giroud’s close-range effort.
Teenager Jordan Rossiter came on to make his top-flight bow for Liverpool and, despite some late Arsenal pressure, the visitors’ well-drilled defence stood firm to secure a point.
Well earned away point. Bit lucky but all the new players look like they are settling well. Rodgers would be mad to sell Lucas.
He was waving good bye to them fans tonight.. And I agree with you mad to sell been one of Liverpools best midfielders in the big matches in the last few years but it’s Rodgers so he will be gone..
Well he might have convinced him tonight. A lot will depend on how long Henderson will be out
two or three good games a season doesn’t warrant keeping him. Liverpool need a much better DM to compete at the top of the table.
He is worth more to the team than any transfer fee they could get, even though he won’t play that often.
Liverpool should really of put away at least one chance in the first half but, equally, Arsenal had a perfectly good goal ruled out. 0 0 is a fair result over the 90mins.
Separately, the empty seats at the end were a disgrace. It was a big game that went down to the wire and half the Arsenal fans were gone home by the final whistle.
Same in every ground, a few people leave early to beat the crowds…
True enough but this was more than a few and the game was hectic right to the end.
What if you had brought the kids with you?
they would brain me if they got home and found out they missed a last minute Coutinho special
Fair result.. Still gutted though, two keepers superb games
Why u gutted then? Fair result
Because I wanted my team to win..
Fair enough real bad start for Arsenal tho 2 homes games and no goals..
Yeah sure what can you do.. We can only afford to lose maybe 2 or 3 matches for the rest of the season or there’s no hope
I would have thought mignolet deserved a mention.
Other than “produced a fine save” he kept us in it towards the end.
Your mixing him up with the linesman mate
I think Carragher was right in saying they were saves you expect him to make and if he let them in they would go down as mistakes..
@irishoversea he was expected to make saves of lesser quality this time last season but he couldn’t manage it! I think he showed tonight the level of improvement he’s made. Cech was brillant too infairness.
So you should start giving him credit for making basic saves? Doesn’t matter if he was rubbish last year.. His saves today is no different from a midfielder making a successful 5 yard pass..
Have you ever played in goal?
Yes and I didn’t expect to be getting credit for making basics saves.. Now on the other hand Cech did deserve credit.. I’m not saying anything bad about the keeper here it’s more down to Arsenal for the lack of really testing him while Liverpool really tested Cech..
It’s easy to use a wrong decision as scapegoat to cover up a bad performance. Still had plenty of time to score and win the match but they couldn’t. That’s 0 goals and 1 point from 2 home games for Arsenal.
There is something inherently wrong with the statement ‘cracking goalless draw’!
it was a good goalless draw
Just goes to show not all 0-0 games are a borefest like United vs Newcastle on Saturday
Maybe it was just me but as good as Cechs save was I thought that Benteke shouldn’t of giving him any chance of saving it at all. 6 yards out would you not expect a striker to just bury that