Arne Slot had waited 18 months for a stalemate and then two came in consecutive Thursdays. The cliché is that they arrived like London buses; the accusation will be that this was Liverpool parking the bus. For Slot, the manager who said it was “hard to hear” that Liverpool had been branded dull and boring, a game that was hard to watch was at least a proof of prowess.
Extending an unbeaten run to 10 games showed a more solid reboot has been a qualified success. A damage-limitation exercise was executed with a studied competence. Liverpool limited Arsenal to an xG of 0.57. They were already the only team to stop Arsenal scoring this season. Now they have done it twice.
