Okay, I hustled through work to catch as much of this as I could, which wound up being the last 30 minutes. What I saw in the final third of the match was an exciting display of football that left me a bit breathless when trying to take in what had just happened.
What I missed was the opening goals from either side, the first half strike from Arsenal's Abou Diaby being slightly more impressive than the header from Liverpool's Sami Hyypia.
What I did witness was a superb blast from Fernando Torres, who corralled a long ball near the box to deliver a rocket in the 69th minute to give Liverpool the lead at 2-1. However, as Arsenal has proven all season long, they are at seemingly at their best when behind late in the game. There was one particular exchange not long after the Torres goal when Liverpool goalie Pepe Reina made a poor clearance, and the next few anxious minutes were spent defending against the Arsenal comeback, with the Liverpool defense shining. One notable exception came when Emmanuel Adebayor completely misplayed a sitter, sending the ball wide right of the goal when the position of Reina showed that had the ball been on target, he would have no shot at stopping it.
Adebayor made amends in the 84th minute, when he was the beneficiary of some dazzling moves from Theo Walcott, who made a long run down the right side of the field leaving Liverpool players in his wake and delivered a perfect ball for him to send home. Though my dislike of Arsenal is no secret, I just had to shake my head at the timing and brilliance of that play; it was certainly a well deserved equalizer.
However, even as Arsenal were still celebrating what seemingly would have been the goal that sent them on to the Champions League semi-finals, Liverpool quickly struck back and in the next minute, Kolo Touré brought down Ryan Babel inside the penalty area. Steven Gerrard drove the penalty into the left side of the goal over the outstretched arms of goalie Manuel Almunia to give the home side the lead back again, whilst Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was shown to be clearly fuming about the ticky-tackiness of the call.
Behind at that point, Arsenal had as many men as they could spare up front, which lead to the final goal that happened in injury time, as Dirk Kuyt linked up with Babel on a breakaway play, and Babel beat Almunia one on one to make the choruses of You'll Never Walk Alone that would echo around Anfield even sweeter.
The bad news is that Liverpool will now face Chelsea for the umpteenth time in recent history for the Champions League semi-finals, so it's highly doubtful we'll see a thrilling goal scoring match as the one we did today. Anyway, congrats to Liverpool for knocking Arsenal out of the Champions League race, well done lads!
ESPN REPORT
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