Triviality of the non-title decider leads to fun, frivolity and petty booing
In the 95th minute, Martin Ødegaard ran through on goal. The Arsenal fans in the Anfield Road stand lurched forward in anticipation. Somewhere in the great gantry in the sky, Brian Moore was clearing his throat. It's up for grabs now! Alas, the Premier League was denied what would surely have been one of its all‑time great moments by Ødegaard dragging his shot wide. Also, to be fair, by the 15-point gap between Arsenal and Liverpool.
And for all the rich entertainment on display here, it was hard for the neutral to ignore the sheer dizzying gulf between how important this could have been, and how important it actually was. Goals and cards, intrigue and controversy, late drama in both penalty areas: this was a game with everything you could possibly want from a title decider, except an actual title to decide.
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Related: Alexander-Arnold booed as Arsenal fight back to snatch point at Liverpool
Perhaps on some level the frivolity contributed to the riotous sense of fun and freedom. Everyone else's title anticlimax has turned out to be Liverpool's month‑long party. But it also contributed to the moment for which this game will ultimately be remembered, midway through the second half, when Trent Alexander‑Arnold came on as a substitute and learned what happens when you turn your back on the family.
In a way, Alexander-Arnold's treatment was in itself an indication of the triviality of the fixture. No way does the Kop go there if the title is still on the line. But then by the same token, nor does Alexander-Arnold. Why cast this entirely avoidable shadow over the last few games of the season? Why not simply wait until after the final game, take his garlands and flowers, surf the wave of ambiguity?
Meanwhile, Arne Slot finds himself in a bind. Conor Bradley, warmly serenaded all game, is still not quite robust enough to last 90 minutes. So do you strengthen the team, even if you weaken the vibes in the process? Perhaps it was no surprise that Arsenal's equaliser came in the weird lacuna that followed Alexander-Arnold's introduction, with Anfield too gripped in its own palace intrigue to notice that Mikel Merino was unmarked in the area.
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And frankly, you have to rate it. The booing of Alexander-Arnold was unbelievably petty, unashamedly small-minded and deeply ungrateful, and these are all intended as compliments. Football fandom should be all these things, should be irrational, should be intensely subjective and wildly disproportionate. Stoke fans still boo Aaron Ramsey for breaking his leg against them 15 years ago. Sunderland and Coventry still hate each other because Jimmy Hill put a score on a scoreboard in 1977. There are no rules to this thing, and can you imagine if there were?
Having grown up in Liverpool, a club and a city where the ties that bind are always a little more conditional and transactional than people like to admit, Alexander‑Arnold should have known what he was getting into. This is our thing. Our family. And in this family you are never half in and half out. In a way there was a sinister mafioso quality to this very public flogging: and let that be a warning to the rest of you.
But perhaps, on some oblique level, it also helps to explain the modern Liverpool, a club on the verge of dismantling the team that has just won them a second Premier League. There is a common view among rival fans that Liverpool is an irredeemably mawkish place, a fanbase mired in nostalgia and Big Feelings. But is there anything colder, anything more ruthless and businesslike, than booing one of your greatest homegrown players the moment he ceases to be useful?
The modern Liverpool can be deceptively pitiless when it chooses to be. The guts of that first great team were quietly jettisoned: Fabinho and Jordan Henderson allowed to go, James Milner not renewed, Naby Keïta and Roberto Firmino ushered towards the exit. Firmino remembers going into Jürgen Klopp's office in early 2023 to tell him he was leaving. 'It seemed like he already knew,' Firmino wrote. 'There would be no extension. It was over.'
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Do Arsenal – a club that dithered for five years over whether it would be impolite to sack its serially underachieving manager – possess that same cold edge? There is still plenty of spirit and quality in this squad, and a stirring second-half comeback indicated as much. But there is still also too much self-exculpation, too much fixation on the process, too much drift, too many excuses, too many passengers.
How much longer are they going to give Gabriel Martinelli to fulfil his rich potential? Why has Ødegaard's attacking output gone into freefall in exactly the season they needed him to step up? Why have they not replaced Thomas Partey? Would Liverpool have given Jorginho an extra year last summer? Why was Bukayo Saka a better player two seasons ago than now? Why not just sign a really good striker?
The answers to these questions are not easy or simple. There is noise out there, statistical and literal, and the danger for a club of Arsenal's stature is always in learning the wrong lessons. Their trip to Anfield did not decide this season's title. But if they're smart, it may just decide the next.
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