Granit Xhaka improvement is clearest sign of Emery changes at Arsenal

It was only a draw, but at the moment for Arsenal the result is less important than the process. The game for them is not about positions and tallies. It is not, as it is for Liverpool, about trying to keep the neck of the disappearing Manchester City close enough to breathe down.

They are not, any more, under the pressure that Pep Guardiola’s side have placed on those who truly aspire to the title. There is no sense for them that every dropped point could be vital – and that means the focus can be far more upon how they played, and the general feel.

And the truth is that it has been a long time since Arsenal felt like this. It wasn’t so much the result against Liverpool as the performance. The sense that, for the first time in a decade, there is something being built, that the years of drift may be over, and that a new team, one that might actually be able to compete with the elite, is being built.

There was an intensity to the Emirates on Saturday, both on the pitch and in the stands, none of that debilitating sense that something would go wrong sooner or later, no Wenger Out grumblings at the first sign of trouble. And perhaps most significant was the fact that something did go wrong, that Arsenal did suffer the sort of setback that in recent seasons would have punctured the balloon, and rather than the sort of slow deflation that had become so characteristic, there was a collective stiffening of the sinews, substitutions that had a positive impact, and an equaliser.

Which is not to say that everything is flawless, particularly not the goalkeeping situation. Sadio Mané’s cross was awkward for Bernd Leno but he was under no immediate pressure and with better footwork he surely would have been able to make a more decisive intervention than pushing the ball on to Rob Holding, off whom it ricocheted to James Milner.

That was not Leno’s only error: in injury time at the end of the first half he had come for Milner’s free-kick and got nowhere near it. Virgil van Dijk’s header bounced off the post. As Jürgen Klopp pointed out, on another day the Dutch defender could have had a hat-trick, which suggests the problems Arsenal had in dealing with set plays, the lack of authority imposed by Leno.

But those are details; important details, yes, but issues that can be resolved. The fundamentals look far better than they have for a long while.

The contrast with Arsenal’s two games against Liverpool last season makes the point clearly. Arsenal lost 4-0 at Anfield last season and were fortunate to draw 3-3 at the Emirates. In both, the defining image was that of Liverpool players being faster, stronger, more committed, tearing past opponents too tentative, too diffident, to make a challenge.

Here there was a moment when Unai Emery, having screamed at Granit Xhaka to track back, punched the air in triumph as the Swiss midfielder dispossessed Mohamed Salah.

Xhaka’s improvement is perhaps the most palpable sign of the difference Emery has made. No longer is he a fine but disassociated left foot bobbing unreliably around midfield, his positioning uncertain, the capacity for a mistake terrifyingly near.

Lucas Torreira has many admirable qualities, but the greatest perhaps is his capacity to make Xhaka look like a holding midfielder, even when playing in front of Shkodran Mustafi. He is only 22 and yet the summer signing has had a galvanising effect throughout the team. What Arsenal needed, it turns out, was not another technically gifted but physically unimposing forward but some muscle at the back of midfield. Who knew?

Those technically gifted but physically unimposing forwards, though, are beginning to function. Alexandre Lacazette’s goal was his fifth of the season and was expertly taken. It would have been easy for him to jab a finish goalwards but, even though only eight minutes remained and a sense of urgency must have been setting in, he had the wherewithal to wait until he was ready, taking the ball away from Alisson on to his right foot before arcing it into the net.

It was the finish of a player high on confidence, and that is what is returning to Arsenal. They are not title challengers yet, far from it, but that is 14 games unbeaten now for Arsenal and, for the first time in a long time, there is a sense of progress being made.