Just for the notebook, this one should be written off

Matthew Norman
22 Dec 2008

Although this was a top-of-the-table clash, it was the nether regions that held sway at the Emirates yesterday. The boys on Sky Sports were obsessed with Rafael Benitez's absence from the Liverpool dug-out and given the cause who can blame them?

Sporting folk are seldom more amused than when a blow to the crotch causes agony, so no wonder mirth encloaked this broadcast with the Spaniard marooned at home by the infinitely worse excruciation of kidney stones.

Those pesky little accretions of uric acid are all the rage right now, with Luiz Felipe Scolari suffering the same complaint, and I blame another football giant for the trend. It was Lord Mandelson, life president of Hartlepool United, who started the craze a while ago, and now everyone's at it.

It says much about the feyness of Europeans that Benitez stayed away yesterday, whereas Mandy was closeted with Gordon Brown in No10 within hours of having his stones out (they are said to be recovering well) under general anaesthetic.

That strikes me as a more intimidating encounter than facing Arsene Wenger but then Englishmen (only two on show yesterday; Steven Gerard and Jamie Carragher for the Scousers) are hardier than continentals and can endure mild-winter afternoons without gloves. Big girl's blouse though he is, Benitez still dominated this game in the style of the Bond villain he resembles. This was like one of those SMERSH meetings presided over by Number One while Blofeld, from his HQ, whispers into an invisible earpiece which colleague to electrocute.

Every few minutes the camera focused on an underling, shielding his mouth from potential Arsenal lip readers with his notebook, as he took telephonic instructions from the stricken gaffer and passed them to Sammy Lee (Number One).

At some point communication problems may have set in, because this was a match Liverpool would surely have won had they not been confused by Emmanuel Adebayor's dismissal, just after the hour, into taking fright and settling for the draw.

Until then the League leaders had been on top, despite going behind to a Robin van Persie goal as well taken as it was undeserved.

Liverpool, so adept at recovery these days, shrugged at the injustice, reasserted themselves, and equalised via a goal rightly sourced by Andy Gray as belonging to an Under-12s game - a towering hoik from deep defence freeing Robbie Keane to lash it high into Arsenal's net.

So absolute was Liverpool's control when the second-half began, with Arsenal paralysed by the loss of Cesc Fabregas to a knee injury, that there was only one potential winner.

Then referee Howard Webb dismissed Adebayor, and most curiously everything changed. For one thing that Trappist congregation known as "the Emirates crowd" found its voice to chant an impertinence about Mr Webb. It is typical of Sky's nether regions' bemusement that, much as they adore innuendo, they are incredibly prudish about the language. Just as The Sun styles the word "t*ts", (even on page three when an inch from the real things), so Sky uses a device that masks or distorts offensive words in chants.

However, despite the ruse, I'm convinced that the home fans' central message was that Mr Webb practises the erotic arts as a soloist.

I disagree. To my eyes, England's outstanding referee made no obvious mistake yesterday, least of all in bidding Adebayor good day for a second blatantly bookable offence. Wenger saw it otherwise but he might have spared us the toddler tantrum had he known that the red card would act as a stop sign to Liverpool when they seemed poised to seize all three points.

Ah, that 10-man paradox. In much the way England played adequately in the last World Cup only once Wayne Rooney had been dismissed against Portugal, Arsenal sparked briefly into life when a man light. Meanwhile, with Rafa on the blower again presumably to tell Notebook Man to tell Number One to tell the lads to settle for the point - like all paranoid Bond baddies, he cannot see a clear advantage without sensing a hidden trap - Liverpool lost their energy.

They did regain some momentum in the closing minutes but not enough to prevent the game ending in the anticipated draw. Overall, despite two fine opportunist goals, this was another turgid advert for the self-styled Best League In The World, devoid of invention and short on drama.

Liverpool, for all their solidity, work-rate and cohesion, lack pace, flair and killer instinct without Fernando Torres. Arsenal still look miles short of the confidence needed to fuel their energetic passing game, which continues to elude them.

Not that Wenger would necessarily agree. In his post-match interview, in fact, he claimed it was Arsenal who'd have gone on to win had Adebayor not gone off to bathe. He said this with a perfectly straight face but it was such a nonsensical remark that I'm pretty sure he was mimicking Benitez's surgeon by extracting the uric acid.