Arsenal 0–0 Liverpool: one of those nights you keep replaying

A goalless draw with Liverpool is usually easy enough to file away. You take the point, clock the clean sheet, remind yourself that the Emirates is still a hard place to go. Then you move on.
This one didn’t do that. It lingered. Not loudly. Just enough to feel off.

Liverpool were perfectly comfortable with it. They didn’t chase the game, didn’t pretend they needed to. Slow it down when required, absorb the pressure, wait for Arsenal to make a mistake. They did exactly what they came for and left with it.

Arsenal was the one trying to force something. They just never quite managed to.

The start felt promising. Arsenal played with intent, sharp without rushing, as if the Anfield defeat was still sitting quietly in the back of their minds. Not anger, more a refusal to let this one slip in the same way.

The rain added to it. Everything felt heavier, louder. Arsenal pressed high, won their duels, and kept Liverpool pinned back. It looked like the kind of opening that usually leads somewhere.

Then came the moment. Alisson under pressure. A slip. The noise lifts—and then drops again. Another half-chance that never really becomes anything. It set the tone more than anyone would have wanted.

Arsenal still had control. Ødegaard dropped in to keep things ticking. Rice and Zubimendi gave balance without risk. Liverpool struggled to get out, and for a while it felt like patience would be enough.

Most of the threat came down the right. Saka kept finding space, driving forward, and forcing defenders into decisions. Saliba stepped in behind him, winning loose balls and keeping Arsenal on the front foot.

And then the reminder arrived. One loose moment at the back. A rare Liverpool sight of goal. The crossbar. A pause. Suddenly, control felt thin.

Liverpool didn’t improve after that. They didn’t need to. They tightened things up, reduced the space, and made the game smaller.

The second half never really caught. Liverpool pressed a bit higher, Arsenal slowed down, and the rhythm disappeared. Passes went sideways more often than forward. A defensive change disrupted the flow. The sharpness from earlier didn’t return.

Liverpool still weren’t offering much going forward. Arsenal’s shape held, and chances stayed scrappy. But that almost made it harder to accept. The game felt there, waiting, and yet it never quite opened up.

Arsenal got into decent areas often enough. That wasn’t the issue. What followed usually was.

When the ball went wide, the box felt empty. Runs came late. Support arrived just after the moment had passed. You kept expecting someone to arrive where it mattered—and too often, no one did.

The substitutions were meant to change the feel of it. More pace, more urgency, something unpredictable. It never really clicked. One player struggled to get involved at all. Another brought energy without a moment to show for it.

It wasn’t a lack of effort. It was the absence of one clean action.

The closing minutes turned scrappy. Fouls, stoppages, and frustration creeping in. Arsenal needed rhythm. They couldn’t find it.

There was one last chance. A corner. A scramble. Gabriel almost got there. The stadium held its breath—and then let it go.

At full time, there was no sense of relief. This didn’t feel like a point earned. It felt like one that slipped.

The table will say Arsenal are fine. Strong at home. Solid defensively. Still in control of their season.

But games like this don’t live in the table. They sit somewhere else. Against a Liverpool side that offered very little going forward, in a stadium ready for something more, Arsenal had enough control to believe they should have found a way.

In a title race, those are the nights that stay with you. Not the defeats—the ones where everything was set up, and you didn’t quite take it.

Under the rain at the Emirates, that’s what this was.