The disgust on Mo Salah’s face as he shot straight down the tunnel at the end was worth a thousand words.
Salah had enough opportunities to win not just this pulsating contest, but most of Liverpool ’s games until the end of the season. His side spurned eight big chances, after 21 attempts on goal, with an expected goals tally of four. The pain was etched on his features for a reason.
He knows his penalty miss - a second in a month after failing to convert just two in his previous five years at Anfield - was so costly, not just in terms of victory, but also the Reds fast disappearing Champions League hopes. Make that disappeared.
Yet he knows too, there were too many aspects of this game where Arsenal exposed the weaknesses which have undermined Liverpool’s campaign, and prompted a summer rebuild from Jurgen Klopp.
Yes, the response when Granit Xhaka provoked the home side, and stirred the hornets’ nest of Anfield was impressive. But has it really come to this? Are Klopp’s team only able to rediscover themselves when sufficiently aroused?
They should have won in the end, but Mikel Arteta’s side know equally they criminally let Liverpool back into the game when they were dead and buried at 2-0 down, just half an hour into what was to then an almost embarrassingly one-sided contest.
That first half hour summed up the Anfield team’s season. Disorganised, disinterested, disheartened. It was the visitors who showed all the heart and passion, as well as all the football.
Xhaka was unwise to provoke a side who were so little of a threat, especially in this emotional stadium. The Kop were outraged by the audacity of his anger, and from then on it was a different place, a gladiatorial arena.
Yet Klopp had said this week was a defining one. With games against City, Chelsea and Arsenal they would either resurrect their top four hopes…or have them shot down in flames. Undisputedly, it has been the latter.
Two points from those three huge matches mean they languish in eighth, 13 points off a Champions League spot with only nine games remaining…a fair reflection of the depths they have sunk to.
So Salah’s demeanour as he hurried down the tunnel was perhaps frustration borne from the unravelling of a great team, not just a striker’s anger at missed chances.
