Arsenal 2-2 Liverpool: Gunners critics have been ready for an implosion amid their harm disaster nevertheless it by no means got here, writes OLIVER HOLT

No one will play their violins too loudly but Arsenal played this game without William Saliba, who was suspended, and Martin Odegaard, who is injured. They are two of their best players. Perhaps their best two players.

They played it without Riccardo Calafiori, too. And they played much of it without Gabriel, their titan of a central defender, who was injured in the second half and whose withdrawal was a huge blow.

They finished the game with a backfour of young Myles Lewis-Skelly, whose previous claim to fame was being shown a yellow card against Manchester City before he had even made his Premier League debut, Jakub Kiwior, Ben White and Thomas Partey, who is a midfielder.

It was a reminder that most had expected them to lose before this match began. They had lost at Bournemouth last week, they had made a nasty habit of getting men sent off. People said their title hopes were disappearing in multiple acts of self-sabotage.

Many were expecting them to crumble against a Liverpool side which had only conceded three goals in eight league matches this season and which has made such an impressive start under new boss Arne Slot.

But Arsenal didn’t crumble. They took the game to Liverpool. Bukayo Saka’s first half performance was quite outstanding. Mikel Arteta’s side in general was mouth-wateringly good in that opening 45 minutes and fully-deserved their 2-1 half-time lead.

And even if Liverpool pegged them back, even if Liverpool had their own periods of dominance after the break, even if 2-2 was a fair result, this was an occasion when this Arsenal team stood up.

They stood up under pressure. They stood up when it was being said that defeat against Liverpool would cut them adrift in the title race and that even at this early stage of the season, it would be hard to recover.

Their critics were waiting for an implosion against Liverpool but that implosion never came. Arsenal started and finished the game pressing for a goal to win the game.

Twice they took the lead and twice they were pegged back and even if the draw leaves them third behind Liverpool and Manchester City, it was the kind of performance that suggested they are not about to fade away.

They have been their own worst enemies in recent weeks with episodes of indiscipline but this time they eked everything out of their performance.

The final whistle might have been met with boos by the home crowd at the end but they were not boos of disdain for their players. They were boos of derision for the referee, who they blamed for denying them a late winner. But most of all, they were boos of disappointment for a win that got away.

Before the game, much had been made of Arsenal’s absentees. The loss of Saliba, Odegaard and Calafiori, added to doubts over Saka and Jurrien Timber, were advanced as reasons why Liverpool were favourites.

But when the team sheets were released an hour before kick-off, the names of Saka and Timber were both writ large on them. Saka’s presence, in particular, was a huge boost for the home team.

Liverpool started with the kind of authority expected from a team that has made such a dominant beginning to the season. Virgil van Dijk rose to make a couple of towering defensive headers and then wrestled and bumped Kai Havertz to the floor to tell him who was in charge.

Saka does that in a different way. In the ninth minute, he ran on to a deliciously floated pass from Ben White that caught Andy Robertson flat-footed. Saka slipped the ball through Robertson’s legs and turned inside before lashing an unstoppable shot high past Caoimhin Kelleher.

Arsenal’s lead only lasted for 10 minutes. Trent Alexander-Arnold curled a corner to the near post where Luiz Diaz got in front of Havertz and flicked it on. As the ball flew across the six-yard box, Van Dijk leaned in front of Thomas Partey and nodded the ball over the line from point-blank range.

Much, quite rightly, has been made of Arsenal’s prowess at attacking set-pieces. Their defending of Liverpool’s dead ball, though, left much to be desired.

Liverpool’s equaliser did nothing to stop Saka, though. Arsenal could not cope with either his guile or his pace. Robertson could not contain him and when he came inside, he was so elusive that Alexis Mac Allister took three attempts to drag him down. Mac Allister was booked.

Arsenal were the better team but they spurned chances. A cross from Gabriel Martinelli bounced off Havertz at the back post when he tried to control it and then Havertz lifted a bouncing ball over the bar from 10 yards as Arsenal appealed in vain for a penalty when Martinelli fell under a challenge from Ibrahima Konate.

But Arsenal got the second goal they richly deserved two minutes before half time. Rice whipped in a brilliant free kick from the right, the kind that is hit flat and curling and with pace and precision, and when Mikel Merino met it six yards out, his header hurtled past Kelleher like a bullet.

Kelleher barely moved but then the game was delayed for several minutes – several agonising minutes for Arsenal fans – while VAR checked whether Merino was offside. When the goal was eventually given, the decision was met with a deafening roar.

Liverpool might have had a second equaliser in added time at the end of the half but David Raya saved well from MacAllister. On the other side of the interval, Raya snatched the ball away from Diaz at the last minute after Diaz had slalomed his way past two challenges on the Arsenal byline.

Arsenal suffered a blow ten minutes into the second half when Gabriel was forced off with injury after a collision with Darwin Nunez. Arsenal had made light of their depleted resources but Gabriel is their defensive mainstay. He was replaced by Jakub Kiwior. 

Gabriel’s withdrawal emboldened Liverpool and unsettled Arsenal. Now it was Liverpool who poured forward, Mo Salah testing Timber down the Liverpool right and Arsenal’s new central defensive pairing of Kiwior and White putting everything on the line to try to keep out the visitors’ relentless attacks.

But Arsenal’s resistance fell short. Nine minutes from time, an Arsenal attack broke down, Alexander-Arnold exposed the poor positioning of Kiwior with a chipped pass to Nunez and Nunez pulled the ball back into the path of Salah, who sidefooted it home in front of massed ranks of the travelling support.

Arsenal thought, briefly, they had grabbed a winner in the dying minutes when Havertz headed the ball goalwards and it bounced off the post before it was clipped across the line. Referee Anthony Taylor ruled it out for an earlier foul. Arsenal’s players were livid.

Both sides seemed deflated when the final whistle blow. Both deserved plaudits but both knew that there was only one winner from this match and that was Manchester City.