Chris Sutton insists Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be “furious” with Granit Xhaka after he made the “meek mice” of Liverpool full of “fury”.
The Gunners raced into a two-goal lead inside the first 30 minutes at Anfield on Sunday as Liverpool struggled to get back into the match.
But an altercation between Arsenal midfielder Xhaka and Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold sparked the crowd into life and Mo Salah grabbed an equaliser before half-time.
Liverpool took the momentum into the second half too with Arsenal struggling to deal with their attacking pressure and they eventually got their reward on 87 minutes when Roberto Firmino headed in an equaliser at the far post.
And Sutton thinks Arteta will be annoyed for Xhaka’s part in waking up the Anfield crowd on Sunday when Arsenal were in control of the game.
“Jurgen Klopp used to describe his Liverpool players as ‘mentality monsters’,” Sutton told the Daily Mail. “But for the first 40 minutes of this match, they were more like ‘meek mice’.
“Liverpool were asleep, 2-0 down and doing nothing to encourage any noise from their supporters.
“Then Granit Xhaka woke them up. Stupidly so. By barging into Trent Alexander-Arnold and then squaring up to him, he riled up the Anfield crowd. Their animosity was infectious and it brought this Liverpool team to life.
“They were suddenly fuelled by fury and emerged for the second half totally up for it – all thanks to that one moment of misjudgment from Xhaka.
“Mikel Arteta will be furious about that, I’m sure. It was totally unnecessary from Xhaka to give Liverpool a reason to stop playing so passively.
“That said, it is worrying for Klopp that it took something like this to get his team going. Should they not be displaying this angry attitude from the start of games?
“That is a big reason why they are where they are, eighth in the Premier League and at risk of missing out on Europe.
“The Liverpool that we saw in the second half on Sunday is the one that Klopp has been desperate to see. Why it’s been missing is a mystery. They need to show this mentality from the first whistle.”
Sutton wasn’t the only pundit who criticised Xhaka over the incident with Man Utd legend Gary Neville pointing out that he broke a golden “rule” at Anfield.
“Arsenal played brilliantly in the first 40 minutes and then they just got the crowd up,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast.
“I’m not pointing directly at the Xhaka incident where he got involved but there is a rule when you play here and it didn’t help.
“There are some rules here: get through the first 25 minutes, play the ball forward and don’t let them press you early on, if the crowd are sleepy, leave it that way.
“Don’t wind the crowd up or give a stupid free-kick away. Don’t get involved in a fight because they want the fire here.
“One team needs fire and that’s Liverpool and one team needs ice and that’s Arsenal. Arsenal got involved in fire before half-time and obviously they conceded.”
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