In the 49th minute Arsenal’s thrilling 3-2 victory over LiverpoolSunday’s play featured a 30 second, completely unimportant passage that summed up the tactical nature the game.
First, Takihiro Tomiyasu shot the ball past the Liverpool defence. Gabriel MartinelliFlagged offside:
The free kick that followed was a great success. Joe GomezYou should pound the ball downfield Darwin Nunez, who attempted to chase his own flick-on, then realised he’d been flagged offside.
Also, there were two consecutive offsides decisions, one at each end, and no event occurred between. 16% of the cases were successful. Premier LeagueIn all of the games this season, there were fewer than two offsides. In this instance, we had two offsides in 30 seconds.
Perhaps it is irrelevant trivia. This was completely in line with the contest’s nature. Here’s an image from 20 minutes in, and the notable thing is that there’s almost no midfield whatsoever. Jordan HendersonThe only person within 15 meters of him is the centre circle, and he is the only one.
