Robertson: We should have won - we have to be more solid

The points were shared in a six-goal thriller at Emirates Stadium on Friday night, but only after both teams had let leads slip.

Goals from Philippe Coutinho, on the occasion of his 150th Premier League appearance, and Mohamed Salah meant the Reds were in control at 2-0 up by the 52nd minute.

But, by the hour mark, the match had been turned on its head with Arsenal scoring three times in quick succession through Alexis Sanchez, Granit Xhaka and Mesut Ozil. 

Roberto Firmino’s 14th goal of the season ensured the visitors did not leave north London empty-handed, but Robertson rued their inability to convert a commanding lead into a win over a side who sit a point and a place beneath them in the table.

“I think it’s one of disappointment [after] going 2-0 up and being pretty comfortable,” the left-back told Liverpoolfc.com when asked to sum up his feelings post-match.

“Then just a lapse in concentration let them back in the game and then we’ve had a whirlwind five minutes where we’ve completely collapsed, and we can’t do that. It’s happened a few times and we need to be more solid and unfortunately we weren’t. 

“But then we’ve settled down again, got our breath back and we’ve bounced back. We played the better football, created a couple of chances and luckily we’ve got on level terms. We could’ve potentially won it in the end but I think we’re the most disappointed team.”

Reflecting on the frantic period during which Sanchez, Xhaka and Ozil scored, Robertson said Liverpool needed to be more alert following Salah’s strike.

See the best of the six-goal thriller on LFCTV GO

“We were expecting them to come out in the second half and have a quick start, so it was being sure that for the first five or 10 minutes we were at 100 per cent but I felt that we started the second half a lot better than them,” the Scotland international continued.

“They made a change and it didn’t really make any difference and then Mo puts us further ahead, but we’ve conceded too quickly after that. We’ve got to be at 100 per cent, we’ve got to use that goal to our advantage so that it gives us a lift to be 100 per cent concentrated in our defensive duties if we were maybe slipping. 

“That’s a disappointment and we have to look at that. The draw in the end we’d have taken at 3-2 down, but we’re definitely disappointed.

“We’ve been scoring goals for fun, really, away from home and not many teams come here and score three goals and don’t go away with three points. 

“Unfortunately that’s happened to us and we have to look at it and see where the mistakes happened and see where we can fix it because it can’t happen again. Once we’re 2-0 up, especially against these quality teams, we’ve got to see out the games.”

Watch: Robertson reflects on Arsenal draw

Despite the overriding sense of disappointment, Robertson believes the Reds showed character to respond to Arsenal’s three-goal salvo with Firmino’s equaliser.

“When you go 3-2 down, their fans are right behind them and they’ve got an extra lift and you think this is just going to see out as an Arsenal win, but after that we got the ball down again and we started creating chances and then we got our goal and it was well deserved,” he noted.

“I don’t think anyone can say Arsenal deserved to win the game, we should’ve won the game, but credit to the lads, credit to Bobby for getting the goal, a bit scrappy as it is but we’ll take it and then at 3-3 we probably had a couple of chances after that to maybe even nick it.”