Leicester stun Spurs, Arsenal held as Liverpool strike late
BY JOHN GEDDIE
THE STAR
LONDON (Reuters) - 'Keep Calm And Carry On' could be Claudio Ranieri's motto for the second half of the season after Leicester City earned a 1-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday to put the heat back on Premier League leaders Arsenal.
Their chances of taking the title may still be minimal -- just two percent according to a statistical report in the Leicester Mercury -- but Robert Huth's late header made a top-four finish look a lot more likely.
Leicester had gone three league games without a goal, dropping behind Arsenal and prompting fears that a slide had started, but their fighting spirit shone through at White Hart Lane.
Striker Jamie Vardy and winger Mahrez have netted 28 goals between them this season but both were off the park when Huth headed an 83rd minute winner, which ended a run of 374 minutes without a goal.
The win left Leicester behind Arsenal -- who played out a 3-3 thriller at Liverpool -- only on goal difference and three clear of third-placed Manchester City.
The gap to Spurs in fourth is now seven points.
Ranieri said it was important that his side showed they can score even when their top two danger men fail to hit the net.
"We created a lot of chances not only with Mahrez and Vardy, but a lot of players can make a goal and that is important for the team, for the confidence to continue in this great moment for us," said Ranieri.
Ranieri, who says he still laughs when people ask him if Leicester can win the league, suggested that 79 points might be enough to claim the title.
They now sit equal with Arsenal on 43 points.
"Always I want something more ... If we make 79 I am very happy," he added.
NO VARDY CONCERNS
It was the second of three matches against Spurs in 10 days, after a 2-2 draw on Sunday in the FA Cup forced a replay, which Leicester host next Wednesday.
Vardy, who missed Sunday's match because of a minor groin operation, had few chances against Spurs and extends his run without a goal to five matches.
Ranieri had no concerns, however, and said the forward's recent performances had been hindered by injuries.
"In the last month and a half, I have not seen Jamie at training because always there was a little problem. Now ... slowly he can start to retrain with us and improve his condition."
The Italian also heaped praise on his defence and in particular goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, who made a series of remarkable saves to keep his side in the match.
"The first 15 minutes were unbelievable, they press a lot and we want to press them but it wasn't possible ... Kasper made some fantastic saves and it is the third clean sheet in a row (in the Premier League)," said Ranieri.
Leicester drew 0-0 with Bournemouth and Manchester City in their previous two league games.
A frustrated Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino said Spurs had been the better side but hailed Leicester's spirit.
"We need to give them full credit because in the way that they play and believe and fight on the pitch, it is unbelievable," he said.
"I'm disappointed because I think we played better ... All the stats are positive for us but then football is about scoring and we didn't score."
(Additional reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond/Peter Rutherford)
Liverpool 3-3 Arsenal:
Joe Allen salvages a point with a late strike at Anfield, after stunning doubles from Olivier Giroud and Roberto Firmino and a calamitous display from Simon Mignolet
Roberto Firmino fired Liverpool ahead after 10 minutes, but Aaron Ramsey equalised for Arsenal four minutes later
Firmino restored Liverpool's lead with a strike from range but Olivier Giroud levelled, with Simon Mignolet at fault
Giroud then put Arsenal ahead for the first time in the game with a tremendous turn and finish in the second half
But Joe Allen converted at the Kop end to save a point for Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp
By MARTIN SAMUEL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 21:59 GMT, 13 January 2016 | UPDATED: 23:53 GMT, 13 January 2016
Appropriately, Anfield appeared to be leaking through every crack and cranny by the end of this game.
The main stand, now one giant building site, was letting in water, perhaps in solidarity with the two defences. There were hurried evacuations, electrical shutdowns, torrents cascading from the sky. As a physical metaphor for the 90 minutes that preceded the downpour, it was close to perfect.
This being a league that nobody wants to win, here was a match played in similar spirit. Liverpool led, twice, in the first-half and surrendered both times. Arsenal finally got in front after 55 minutes and held on until the final attack of the match, when they too, failed to maintain supremacy. It was a brilliant, thrilling game, but strewn with errors and defensive lapses.
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Liverpool midfielder Joe Allen (second left) hauls his side level in the final minute of the game to earn his team a point against Arsenal
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Allen is mobbed by his team-mates after having the final word in a gripping encounter between Liverpool and Arsenal
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Jurgen Klopp celebrates wildly as Allen's shot hits the back of the net to salvage a point against Arsenal at Anfield
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Arsene Wenger looked frustrated by his side's failure to hold on to their lead in the final minutes of the game at Anfield
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Klopp takes to the Anfield pitch to applaud the Liverpool supporters as snow falls at Anfield at the end of the game at Anfield
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Liverpool striker Roberto Firmino (centre) rifles his side into the lead against Arsenal in the 10th minute at Anfield on Wednesday
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The Liverpool squad gather together in celebration after Firmino (second left) had given the team the lead against Arsenal
MATCH FACTS, PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE AND MATCH ZONE
LIVERPOOL (4-1-4-1): Mignolet 4; Clyne 6.5, Toure 6, Sakho 4.5, Moreno 5.5; Can 6 (Allen, 82); Ibe 5.5, Lallana 6 (Caulker, 88), Henderson 7, Milner 6.5 (Benteke, 66); Firmino 8. Subs not used: Lucas, Smith, Ward, Teixeira.
Scorers: Firmino, 10, 19, Allen 90.
Booked: Clyne, Firmino.
Arsenal: Cech 6, Bellerin 7, Mertesacker 6.5, Koscielny 7.5, Monreal 7; Ramsey 7.5, Flamini 7; Campbell 7.5 (Oxlade-Chamberlain, 75), Ozil 6 (Arteta, 87), Walcott 6.5 (Gibbs, 79); Giroud 8.5.
Subs not used: Gabriel, Chambers, Iwobi, Macey.
Scorers: Ramsey, 14, Giroud, 25, 55.
MOTM: Giroud
Referee: Mike Jones 7
Never shirked a decision and let the game flow. Got all the major calls correct and was always in the right place to make them.
Att: 44,109
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Roberto Firmino's second goal, shown through our superb MATCH ZONE
In the end, Liverpool earned a point with a bit of Jurgen Klopp’s heavy metal. A big old wallop into the box, a big old walloper of a centre-forward on the end of it and a loose ball leathered into the net to conclude. It wasn’t total football, but Klopp and his Kop adored it anyway. By then, snow was falling, which soon turned to rain and the roof fell in. Arsene Wenger will know that feeling, too.
At one point in the evening, Leicester were drawing at Tottenham and Arsenal were leading here. In that moment, Wenger’s team were four points clear at the top. After Joe Allen had scored the game’s sixth goal, and Robert Huth Leicester’s winner, that gap was goal difference alone. Arsenal might have settled for a point before kick-off; at the final whistle it must have felt like a blade between the shoulder blades.
It was their own fault, though, failing to defend some fairly agricultural routes to goal, once Klopp had introduced his battering ram Christian Benteke after 66 minutes.
By the end, even emergency signing Steven Caulker, a centre-half by trade and of late not a particularly reliable one, was up in the box and hoping to cause carnage. The ploy worked.
Jordan Henderson lumped the ball in from deep, Benteke rose high, a chest higher than any other player in the vicinity, and his header looped across the area as Arsenal scrambled to clear. Substitute Joe Allen, no doubt ignoring a nosebleed, arrived first, Frank Lampard style, and defeated Petr Cech at his near post. In an instant, Klopp was off.
Down the touchline, as is his jubilant style when Liverpool keep going to the bitter end. It is really all he has to cling to right now, but it kept him warm on a wet and snowy night.
There had been a lot of Liverpool pressure late on, but little that seemed capable of piercing Arsenal’s defence. It should have been their game, with Olivier Giroud’s 55th minute goal the winner.
Certainly, Giroud deserved more for a brave and determined display. He wore a small dressing on the back of his head, a wound from an earlier clash in the build-up to Arsenal’s first goal, and it was his flick that caused the mistake for Arsenal’s second.
Throughout he led the line courageously and the third was a just reward. Hector Bellerin fed the ball to the hard grafting Joel Campbell, who slipped it to Giroud. In one deft movement he sent Kolo Toure spectacularly the wrong way and tucked the ball into the far corner past Simon Mignolet.
‘A silent song’ was Klopp’s description of the football Arsenal play under Wenger. He says he preferred heavy metal. “I like it loud,” he insists. In which case, he would have loved this, in particular a first-half that might as well have been orchestrated from the clouds by Lemmy of Motorhead. It was headbanging, migraine-inducing stuff, complete with four goals in the space of 15 minutes, some frantic riffing and a couple of mesmerising solos. Wenger stood on the touchline as if trying to make sense of it all; Klopp went nuts and was spoken to by the referee.
It was, in many ways, a typically confusing 90 minutes. We saw the best of Liverpool, in the performance of the season so far from Roberto Firmino, and the worst in the way they failed to hang on to a lead and struggled consistently against set pieces. We saw the worst of Arsenal, in sloppy defensive errors that led to goals, but the best, too, in the wit with which they got back into the game.
Most of all, we were entertained. This may not be the highest quality league in Europe but it is unmatched for breakneck occasions like this, a game played at a pace that would leave sane men gasping. At times, it wasn’t even heavy metal. It was punk. It was The Damned’s first single, speeded up in the studio because they couldn’t play as fast as they wanted it to sound.
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But Aaron Ramsey swiftly hauled Arsenal level at Anfield, drilling low past Simon Mignolet in the 14th minute of the encounter
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Five minutes later, Liverpool had the lead again, this time through a stunning strike from long range by Firmino
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Firmino (centre) is mobbed by Liverpool team-mates Jordon Ibe (left) and Adam Lallana after putting the side 2-1 ahead at Anfield
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But Arsenal were soon level once again, when France international striker Giroud (left) got a light touch onto an inswinging corner
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Giroud watches on as his touch helps the ball get beyond the Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet in the 25th minute of the game
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Giroud (third left) put Arsenal into the lead for the first time with a stunning turn and strike in the 55th minute at Anfield
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Giroud celebrates in front of the travelling Arsenal supporters after giving his side the lead against Liverpool
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Giroud scored twice but Arsenal were unable to hold on for victory against Liverpool in an entertaining match at Anfield
The game was ten minutes old when Theo Walcott made the error that led to Liverpool’s first goal. He lost control of the ball, overrunning it into the path of Emre Can, who cut inside and shot through a crowd of players. Cech saw it late, but reacted magnificently, parrying the ball with both hands.
It was his misfortune that it fell to Firmino, and that he should react with such quick thought. He altered his angle, swiftly, and shot through the legs of Laurent Koscielny, giving Cech no chance. This time he genuinely was blind-sided.
It was a beautiful finish, exactly what Liverpool hoped they were getting for £29m last summer.
And it lasted all of four minutes. The ball was played upfield and Giroud got the better of Mamadou Sakho in the air, although the pair clashed heads and the Arsenal man required treatment. Liverpool failed to clear the loose ball which was picked up by Joel Campbell. He played the sweetest reverse pass into Aaron Ramsey which so flummoxed the Liverpool defence that the Welshman as good as passed the ball in at the near post past Mignolet.
So back up the pitch we went where, five minutes later, Arsenal spurned several attempts to clear the danger in midfield – including two ricochets off the unfortunate Campbell – before James Milner finally fed the ball to Firmino on the edge of area once more.
This was another pearl – a curling, teasing shot, that fooled Cech into thinking he had a chance, before moving tantalisingly out of his reach and into the top corner. This was the Firmino Klopp hoped to have inherited. Marked as an overpriced flop before Liverpool changed manager, Klopp said he was pleased to be working with him – announcing he wanted to bring him to Borussia Dortmund, from Hoffenheim, but couldn’t afford the fee.
Now we know why.
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Giroud missed an excellent opportunity to give Arsenal the lead for the first time in the first half, failing to convert from inside six yards
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Firmino (right) then saw his left-footed shot hit the crossbar, with the Brazil international almost completing his hat-trick in the first half
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Liverpool manager Klopp shouts instructions to his players as they try to find an equaliser against Arsenal
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Steven Caulker came on to make his Liverpool debut, replacing Adam Lallana in the 88th minute against Arsenal
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Former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez, recently dismissed by Real Madrid, was at Anfield to watch the game against Arsenal
A pity that he never really got the chance to enjoy such a splendid display. Just six minutes after giving Liverpool the lead a second time, Firmino was reined in again.
Ramsey benefitted from a lovely clipped pass over the top of Liverpool’s back line and lobbed Mignolet, before Sakho headed over with the ball goalbound.
From the resulting corner, however, a flick by Giroud struck the inside of the goalkeeper’s standing leg and diverted the ball over his line. Giroud claimed it, Mignolet didn’t, but the dubious goals panel is likely to make his contribution plain, even if little else is these days.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3398223/Liverpool-3-3-Arsenal-Joe-Allen-salvages-point-late-strike-Anfield-stunning-doubles-Olivier-Giroud-Roberto-Firmino-calamitous-display-Simon-Mignolet.html#ixzz3xBcF3X4w
