Arsenal missed a chance to pull eight points clear in the Premier League after being stifled in a 0-0 home draw with Liverpool on Thursday.
Disappointing for so much of its title defense so far this season, Liverpool put in a polished display in driving rain at Emirates Stadium to bring an end to Arsenal’s five-match winning run in the league.
The closest either team came to scoring was when Liverpool right back Conor Bradley chipped David Raya after a mix-up between the Arsenal goalkeeper and center back William Saliba, only for the ball to rebound off the crossbar.
Arsenal had just nine shots all match — its lowest at home in four years — and looked unusually disjointed, leading to frustration among the home supporters during the second half.
Still, they have plenty to be happy about. Arsenal ended the latest round how it started — with a six-point lead over both second-place Manchester City and third-place Aston Villa. With 17 games left, the Gunners remain strong favorites to clinch a first league title since 2004.
City and Villa both drew matches on Wednesday, against Brighton and Crystal Palace, respectively.
“We have some moments where we have the right positional advantages to really hurt them, and then when we got into these areas, we lacked quality to pick the players,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said of his team’s performance.
“We’ve come from a very demanding schedule … the six games that we’ve played in this Christmas period … and we’ve come out of that in a really strong position.”
10 games unbeaten
Liverpool stayed in fourth place and extended its unbeaten streak to 10 matches. The champions lacked a spark up front without injured strikers Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike, and with Mohamed Salah away with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations, but defensively they have tightened up and they dominated the midfield battle in the second half.
“We faced an unbelievable team,” Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai said, “but we showed again today why we became champions last season. This was a step forward after recent weeks.”
A big negative for Liverpool was the sight of the injury-prone Bradley getting carried off on a stretcher in second-half stoppage time with an apparent lower leg issue after landing awkwardly making a clearance.
While Bradley was writhing around in pain near the sideline, Gabriel Martinelli dropped the ball on him then tried to roll the defender off the playing surface. That sparked some pushing and shoving between the players, with Martinelli getting booked.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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