In the 49th minute of Arsenal’s thrilling 3-2 victory over Liverpool on Sunday, there was an entirely forgettable 30-second passage of play which nevertheless summed up the tactical nature of the game.
First, Takehiro Tomiyasu launched a ball over the Liverpool defence for Gabriel Martinelli, who was flagged offside.
And from the subsequent free kick, Joe Gomez hammered a ball downfield for Darwin Nunez, who attempted to chase his own flick-on, then realised he’d been flagged offside.
In other words, here were two consecutive offside decisions, one at either end of the pitch, without a single event taking place between.
In 16 per cent of Premier League games this season, there have been fewer than two offsides in the entire game. Here, we had two in the space of 30 seconds.
Irrelevant trivia, perhaps. But this was entirely in-keeping with the nature of the contest.
Here’s an image from 20 minutes in, and the notable thing is that there’s almost no midfield whatsoever.