Arsenal 2-2 Liverpool: Mohamed Salah makes a last-ditch save against the injured hosts | Football news

Mohamed Salah’s late equalizer saved Liverpool from a 2-2 draw at injury-ravaged Arsenal and moved them within one point at the top of the table.

The Gunners were without William Saliba and Riccardo Calafiori from their starting four and kept their visitors at arm’s length for much of the thrilling encounter, but after losing Gabriel to a knee injury during the game, they were punished late by a clinical Liverpool side. . counter.

Trent Alexander-Arnold’s long pass down the home side’s right stretched out Darwin Nunez’s pace, giving him time to get back to Salah and score his sixth Premier League goal of the season.

It left Liverpool four points clear of their hosts despite what Jamie Carragher described as a “disappointing” performance. “If you think about the problems Arsenal had (with injuries) during the game, I expected them to create a lot more,” he said.

Arsenal took a defensive lead after just nine minutes when Bukayo Saka won a race with Andy Robertson and flicked the ball down the line to Ben White. Despite the Liverpool defender coming to his senses, Saka pushed him away a second time before firing a shot at Caoimhin Keller’s near post.

Questions about the makeshift centre-back pairing of Gabriel and White were largely answered in open play. Instead it was a corner that gave Liverpool an equalizer nine minutes later when Virgil van Dijk stooped to nod in Luis Diaz’s shot.

The Premier League set-piece masters were not to be outdone and restored their lead minutes before the break with Merino’s first goal for the club, heading Kelleher at the back post from a Declan Rice free-kick.

The Spaniard’s celebrations were briefly interrupted by a VAR review, which took several minutes to confirm he was in with the better lead.

Liverpool forced David Rye to make just one save after the break, despite Arsenal losing Gabriel and then Jurrien Timber to injury, until they finally got into gear with 10 minutes remaining to catch up Arsenal in the backfield for Salah’s late leveller.

The goal prevented Arsenal from reducing the gap to the Reds to one point, and instead moved the visitors one point back from new leaders Manchester City.

Match history in statistics…

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