Arbeloa took his first point as Fulham manager at Anfield, and Liverpool have now drawn four in a row there

Alvaro Arbeloa played 98 games for Liverpool between 2007 and 2009 and never had a Saturday at Anfield quite like this one. His Fulham side were the brighter team for long stretches of it, twice got in behind and did not take it, and walked off with a goalless draw and the first point of their Premier League season. Liverpool are still unbeaten. Almost nobody inside the ground seemed to think that was the story.

Four draws in a row at Anfield

That is where Liverpool are now. Saturday’s 0-0 was their fourth successive Premier League draw at home, a run that stretches back into last season, and their third draw in four matches this one. One win, three draws, six points, sixth place. Arsenal, who have won all four, are on twelve.

Alisson was not interested in the unbeaten record afterwards. “We are not happy at all with a draw, that’s not something that should happen with Liverpool,” he said. “Unbeaten with three draws is not something to celebrate too much with this shirt.” Goalkeepers do not usually go looking for that sentence after a clean sheet.

Sixty-seven hours after Atletico

Andoni Iraola had an explanation and was careful not to lean on it. Liverpool beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 on Wednesday night in the Champions League, and kick-off at Anfield came about 67 hours later, the tightest turnaround of his season so far. He made three changes for it: Ryan Gravenberch, Kostas Tsimikas and Victor Munoz came in for Milos Kerkez, Alexis Mac Allister and Rio Ngumoha.

“We lacked a bit of freshness,” Iraola said, before adding that it was easy to blame tired legs and that he did not want to. His squad could not hide it, was roughly his point, but the players who did start were not short of quality. Alexander Isak led the line with Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola either side of him, three of the most expensive signings in the club’s history, and between them they did not force Bernd Leno into a serious save.

Where Fulham kept getting in

Barcola did find Isak early, but the angle was tight and the shot slid wide. After that Liverpool ran out of ideas in the final third for most of an hour, which Iraola himself flagged as new: this was the first time since he arrived that the team could not manufacture chances.

Fulham, meanwhile, kept getting in. Josh King broke through and put his effort off target. The clearer one came when Alisson misplaced a pass to Gravenberch, Sander Berge picked it up and fed King, whose cross found Garcia in front of goal, and only Jacquet getting a body on the line kept it out. Kenny Tete needed treatment at one stage, which slowed things further, and by the time Liverpool built their late pressure Fulham were defending their box in numbers rather than chasing a winner.

Munoz did get a free header from a corner. Leno held it. Dominik Szoboszlai hit one hard and late and it went straight at the goalkeeper. Anfield had stopped expecting by then.

A first point that took four games

Fulham had lost their opening three, and the noise around Arbeloa had begun the way it always does for a head coach who arrives from somewhere glamorous with no points on the board. He is 43. He took the job on 7 July, on a three-year deal, replacing Marco Silva after Silva left for Benfica, and he got it on the back of five months in charge of Real Madrid, where he had stepped up in January when Xabi Alonso was sacked.

A point at Anfield does not fix a season that has one point in it. It does tell you something about how his team is set up, though. Fulham did not sit in and survive. They pressed a tired Liverpool midfield, won the ball high enough to hurt them twice, and were let down by finishing rather than by structure. Do that at Craven Cottage against the sides around them and the bottom of the table could look very different by the end of October.

For Liverpool the question is less comfortable. They have lost nobody, beaten one Premier League side in four attempts, and drawn their last four at home. Iraola is right that the fixture list has been unkind. He will also know that nobody at this club has ever been graded on defeats avoided.

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