Having already won the Premier League, Liverpool had little left to play for except a record points total, while Arsenal still have an outside chance at qualifying for the Europa League next season.
After drawing against Burnley, Liverpool needed to win all three of their remaining games if they were to beat Manchester City’s record of 100 points, so Jurgen Klopp put out a full-strength side, replacing youngsters Curtis Jones and Neco Williams with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Trent Alexander-Arnold in their usual 4-3-3.
Mikel Arteta made a host of changes to the eleven that lost the North London derby but kept with the same 3-4-3 formation.
Arsenal attempted to press Liverpool high up the pitch by having Alexandre Lacazette keep close to Fabinho and Reiss Nelson and Nicolas Pépé pressing Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez, often while curving their runs to block the pass out to the full-backs. If Liverpool tried to pass out to the open full-backs, the Arsenal wing-back on that side would push up to close him down while the one on the opposite flank would tuck in. This use of a back five ensured that Arsenal weren’t caught out by the switches of play that have troubled so many teams against Liverpool this season.
To play around this, Liverpool had Georginio Wijnaldum drop back alongside Fabinho to outnumber Arsenal’s forwards.
Lucas Torreira would push up behind him, however this left Granit Xhaka outnumbered in front of the defence, with Oxlade-Chamberlain pushing forward between the lines, Sadio Mane tucking inside and Roberto Firmino dropping off to receive the ball.
Arsenal tried to play out of the back by baiting Mohamed Salah into pressing David Luiz, then bouncing the ball into the feet of Kieran Tierney via Xhaka or Bukayo Saka tucking inside, however each time they tried to play down the line, Arsenal would end up giving it away.
Luiz was also trying to pick out lots of long balls, and horribly misjudged them each time.
Liverpool took the lead when Andy Robertson won a header in the Arsenal half and continued his run forward while Cédric Soares slowly limped back. The Scot made a run in behind Rob Holding as Firmino dribbled towards him, forcing Luiz across to cover and leaving Mane free in the centre to finish his low cross.
Arsenal managed to pull one back though when Nelson caught Van Dijk dwelling on the ball. With their frontline positioned high up against Liverpool’s backline, Arsenal quickly burst forward with Lacazette rounding Alisson Becker to equalise.
Soon after, they took the lead. Robertson’s throw-in went back towards Alisson and the Brazilian’s return pass under pressure from Nelson was poor. Lacazette intercepted it and squared the ball to Nelson to finish.
These were two stupid mistakes by Liverpool but they had made several of them – Fabinho had misplaced a number of easy passes too that had gone unpunished – and Arsenal were set up to exploit them. Too used to the majority of their work just being collecting long, hopeful balls in behind, Liverpool’s backline were caught out by Arsenal’s pressure.
The second half followed a simpler structure: Arsenal dropped back to defend their lead and Liverpool tried to break them down.
Liverpool would toy around with neat passes around the edge of the area, however the majority of their attacking was just pushing lots of players into the box and looking to drop a ball into them. With Arsenal having so many players back, this rarely threatened.
With the record points total now an impossibility, Liverpool have nothing left to play for as they finish their guard of honour tour.
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