Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool

25 min: GOAL!!! Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool. What a response by Liverpool, and Steven Gerrard in particular! The Liverpool captain exchanges passes with Babel and then Torres on the left-hand edge of the Arsenal area, then all of a sudden powers into the box, past Toure, and slams a low cross across the face of the six-yard box which Kuyt, sliding in, prods home!

22 min: GOAL!!! Arsenal 1-0 Liverpool. Van Persie takes another pop from outside the area which Reina does well to turn round his right-hand post. From the corner, taken by Fabregas, Adebayor is given a clear jump at the far post, on the edge of the six-yard box. He can't miss, and doesn't, hammering a header into the top left. That goal had been coming, and Liverpool's back four was all over the place there.

20 min: Arsenal are beginning to boss this now. Flamini loops a delicious ball over the Liverpool back four, releasing Van Persie. The ball drops just inside the area and is perfect for volleying - almost too perfect, as the Dutchman connects too well, sending the ball over the bar. A great chance spurned.

18 min: Toure skins Carragher down the left to win a corner off the covering Mascherano. Fabregas takes it, Reina comes out to claim, misses, and is thankful Toure didn't finish off what he started after missing his header. "Philosophically speaking, I would say, based on the extraordinary difference between what happens on the pitch on what ends up in the MBM that the Guardian football writers are solipsists," decides Richard Whittall, who knows us too well.

15 min: A Liverpool corner is easily cleared, but Alonso drills it straight back in and releases... Hyypia! The ball gets under the big Finn's feet at record speeds, however, and the chance is easily cleared up by Gallas. Without too much happening in the way of high drama, this has been a fairly open start.

13 min: Fabregas oh so nearly releases Van Persie down the inside left channel with Skrtel all at sea. Luckily for the big defender, the pass isn't quite accurate enough. "So the Bhuddist says to the hot dog vendor, make me one with everything," says philosophical humourist Ewan Benson in the pint-and-a-pie style. "The vendor obliges and takes $5 from the Bhuddist. The Bhuddist asks for his change and the vendor replies: Change comes from within."

10 min: Hleb nearly manages to intercept a poor crossfield ball from Alonso but, with acres of green grass in front of him, falls over and the chance of a dangerous break is gone. What happened to the Alonso of 2004/05? Anyway, that's sport, now for the weather. "Where's Gillett supposed to be flying in from?" wonders Paul Quigley. "Cos I'm in Colorado Springs and it's a beautiful blue-sky day and 60 degrees out here." No idea, but in other news, Gillett was planning to take four members of his clan with him, while Hicks has rocked up big-leggy with 20-odd family friends of his own.

6 min: A true comedy cut from Reina, who comes out of his box to beat Adebayor to a ball - and misses his kick! The ball's out on the right wing at the striker's feet, but instead of racing back into the box to cover his open goal, Reina decides to make a challenge and blocks Adebayor's attempt to curl the ball round him. A great tackle, but real hearts-in-the-mouth stuff for Liverpool supporters.

5 min: From tight on the right touchline, Alonso slips a wonderful ball along the grass towards Kuyt in the box; the striker is clear in a bit of space but lets the pass roll under his feet.

3 min: Liverpool have enjoyed a fair bit of the ball so far, though all in their own half. Arsenal for their part seem happy to sit back at this point. It's basically some very ginger sparring, so in lieu of proper action, here's a little from Arthur Schopenhauer, courtesy of Thad Brown. "Regarding watching Liverpool: Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. And of course, regarding MBM reporters: Journalists are like dogs, whenever anything moves they begin to bark." Move? You obviously haven't witnessed the guardian.co.uk sport desk after a particularly heavy lunch.

And we're off! Liverpool, playing in black, get the ball rolling and hump it forward to Babel. For a split second it looks like he might be able to shimmy and shake and scoot past Toure, but the defender holds his position and eventually the winger loses the ball and any chance of creating danger has gone.

An amusing diversion containing a long word that means "amusing diversion": "If this MBM doesn't have a preamble, what's all the philisophising?" ponders Jack Lee. "A post-preamble divertissement? And if an MBM preamble is written but nobody reads it, does it get catalogued by Google?" Speaking of diversions, Liverpool co-owner George Gillett, who was due to rock up at the Emirates and shoot dirty glances across the directors box at Tom Hicks, hasn't turned up. Something to do with snow in Colorado; his plane couldn't take off. Which means he's not been technically diverted, as he hasn't moved anywhere.

Thinking About Stuff Today with guardian.co.uk sport: "On the philosophy front," begins Gareth Griffiths, "I think most journalists at the Guardian these days are Platonists. Just as Plato didn't like artists because they could never perfectly reproduce true nature, Guardian journalists complain about the quality of all football. They like the idea of football but not the actual game played." Bah! Though Platonist sounds better than Miserable Old Soak, so we're nevertheless happy to accept your findings, Professor Griffiths. Meanwhile Jason Graff has an idea what Uncle Bertie Russell might have said of Rafael Benitez pondering his line up: "Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical."

MBM Reporter's Logic Found To Have Massive Holes In It shocker! "If your no-hype rationale was followed to its vanishing point," writes David Studer, "for today's match to be the greatest and most beautiful of all time would require that you never existed at all." Ssh, David, don't be giving them any ideas, for God's sake. Meanwhile Liverpool fans are already gearing themselves up for an evening of entertai... oh alright, they're clinically depressed. "Philosophically, I have resigned myself to losing one, possibly two of the three games this week," mopes Ian Joilet. "Clearly, this is not the right attitude, but winning one out of three would be great and avoiding a whitewash is my main priority. Nothing if not depressingly, pessimistically
pragmatic." Hold on, did you say "philosophically"? Is this what passes for thinking about stuff these days in modern Britain? Does the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge and conduct now boil down to worrying if Dirk Kuyt will be, literally and metaphorically, up to speed? Bertrand Russell would be spinning in his grave, had his ashes not been scattered up a mountain in Wales.

Emmanuel Adebayor is back: Almunia, Toure, Gallas, Senderos, Clichy, Eboue, Flamini, Fabregas, Hleb, Van Persie, Adebayor.
Subs: Lehmann, Diaby, Song Billong, Silva, Bendtner, Justin Hoyte, Walcott.

As is Javier Mascherano: Reina, Carragher, Skrtel, Hyypia, Aurelio, Mascherano, Alonso, Kuyt, Gerrard, Babel, Torres.
Subs: Itandje, Riise, Voronin, Benayoun, Crouch, Arbeloa, Lucas.

Referee: Pieter Vink (Holland)

Kick off: 7.45pm.

Chelsea v Arsenal 2004, Arsenal v Chelsea 2004, Chelsea v Liverpool 2005, Liverpool v Chelsea 2005, Chelsea v Liverpool 2007, Liverpool v Chelsea 2007. Big hyped matches all, terrible anti-climaxes to boot, give or take a neat Wayne Bridge one-two here, the odd "phantom goal" there. So my rationale is this: you'll get no whipped-up preamble from us, and hopefully we'll all be rewarded with an open, free-flowing, classic tie. You'll thank me for this in a couple of hours.