Rob Green was a fine goalkeeper in his day, but the poor lad was never allowed forget the time he let a long-range Clint Dempsey shot squirm through his paws in England’s 2010 World Cup game against the United States. But if that was an ordeal, you’d imagine having to talk non-stop for a whole two hours on Sky Sports News about how potentially momentous Thursday evening’s Arsenal v Liverpool game could be was a bit on the trying side too.
There are only so many times you can say ‘Arsenal have one hand on the trophy, but they’ve fecked things up so many times before, I wouldn’t be arranging an open-top bus parade just yet’.
That was the gist of the tone in the rather lengthy build-up, then, until Freddie Ljungberg appeared on our screens. “I think tonight they can win the Premier League,” he said, a touch boldly, in the Gooners’ legends slot. Robert Pires and Emmanuel Petit appeared too, both bullish-ish as well, but not quite venturing in to chicken-counting territory.
All three, Roy Keane noted, are wearing decidedly well, Ljungberg looking as fit as he did when he modelled Calvin Klein underwear back in the day, when he caused many a motorway pile-up in the proximity of those billboards.
But the appearance of the trio was a bit of a reminder that Bukayo Saka was two when Arsenal last won the league, a whole 22 years ago. “Have we seen this film before,” David Jones asked his panel, wondering if chat about that drought ending was a bit premature.
But Gary Neville, who’s been tipping Arsenal to win the league since around the time Bukayo started to walk, doubled down. “I think their second 11 would finish in the top four in the Premier League,” he said, the quality of their first-choicers nudging him towards labelling them ‘The New Invincibles’.
Where had it all gone wrong for Liverpool in the defence of their crown? Daniel Sturridge suggested that among their missteps was letting Jarell Quansah go. Gary tried to hide his mystification, but failed.
When the team news was announced, you couldn’t but giggle at all those gripes about Thomas Tuchel still (mainly) living in Germany and not attending enough Premier League games. English players in the Liverpool team? None? In Arsenal’s? Two. Just twice as many starters as Ecuador had on the pitch.
One of the English (let it go) lads was, of course, Declan Rice. When Jamie Redknapp told him in a prematch interview that he’d probably win the Ballon d’Or one day, he cracked up. “I’m just Dec from Kingston, in I,” he said. Yes, yes, in footballing terms he took the soup, but look it, it’s hard not to love the fella. Even Roy doffed his cap.
Off we went, Storm Goretti threatening to turn the stadium’s carefully manicured pitch into a humongous pool, not a great deal happening in that first half other than Conor Bradley hitting Arsenal’s crossbar after a 23-pass Liverpool move.
They were, it seemed, up for it. Sky’s Patrick Davison had asked Dominik Szoboszlai before the game if Liverpool were about to play the new champions. “No, we don’t play against the champions – they play against the champions,” he said. Smooth.
Half-time. David suggested that an Arsenal bench worth £273 million offered somewhat more options to Mikel Arteta than Arne Slot’s £62 million stragglers offered to him. But even after Arteta deployed five of them, it was still a much-ado-about-nothing kind of a game. On 85 minutes, a grumpy Sky told us that it had been 44 minutes since Arsenal had a shot on goal, and 82 since Liverpool achieved the feat.
In time, we’ll recover from losing those 90-plus minutes of our lives, but the table still presents a pretty picture for Arsenal. But best hold off on booking that open-top bus parade. Gooners have, after all, seen this film before.