Arteta laments lack of ´magic moment´ after Liverpool frustrate Arsenal

Mikel Arteta bemoaned Arsenal missing a “magic moment” after the Premier League leaders were held to a 0-0 draw by Liverpool.

The Gunners missed a chance to go eight points clear at the summit on Thursday, with Liverpool – the defending champions – frustrating their hosts at Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal started well but never really tested Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, and it was Arne Slot’s team who went closest to scoring when Conor Bradley hit the crossbar in the first half.

There were only 17 shots between both teams combined (nine for Arsenal and eight for Liverpool). The Gunners finished with 0.57 expected goals to the Reds’ 0.36.

Arteta feels that a moment of real quality was missing, and pointed to the reverse fixture back in August – which was settled by a stunning Dominik Szoboszlai free-kick – as being a similar game.

He told Sky Sports: “We know that the margins are very small. I think we have two different halves.

“The first one, where we have a lot of domination, created big situations with players almost onside the six-yard box to pick a player up, and we didn’t find the right pass to score the goal. And the second half was a bit more of a struggle.

“This game needs some magic moments, and at Anfield, Szoboszlai did it, and they won the game, and today it didn’t happen, but you cannot win it, you cannot lose it.

Tonight was the first time that Liverpool haven’t attempted a single shot on target in a Premier League match for nearly 16 years (March 2010).

Here the their team in the last Premier League match that they failed to have one. pic.twitter.com/itUMg0rtNB

— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) January 8, 2026

“We have some moments where we have the right positional advantages to really hurt them, and then when we got into these areas, we lacked quality to pick the players.

“We’ve come from a very demanding schedule. The last six games that we’ve played in this Christmas period, and we’ve come out of that in a really strong position.”

Arsenal failed to score in a Premier League game for the first time since losing to Liverpool at Anfield earlier this season.

The Gunners have now failed to win each of their last five Premier League games against Liverpool when facing them as league leaders (D4 L1), drawing all three to take place under Arteta.

This was the first 0-0 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool in the Premier League since August 2015.