Arsenal are beautifully frustrating under Arsene Wenger …but the Jose Mourinho way would never work

So there it was. Football. Goals. Shots. Headers. Saves. Mistakes. All that stuff was on display at the Emirates in the brilliant 3-3 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool on a fabulous, festive Friday night.

All that stuff can sometimes seem a bit of an inconvenience for modern football and for some modern football fans, as much as television loves it.

In this technologically-savvy era, there’s too much analytics, too much tactical detail and too much smart-aleckry being spouted by too many followers of the game who have maybe lost sight - or never really knew – what its actually about.

And it leads to too much expectation that football can be boiled down to some kind of equation in which there is room only for what has been planned before-hand and where there is certainly no space for human frailty and error.

Yet surely Gunners fans will settle for some more of this kind of thing as the final 18 months or so of Arsene Wenger’s long reign at the club winds down?

They are not going to win the title this season. That belongs to Manchester City. Probably for the next three or four years, too, given the transfer plans they are now drawing up for January and next summer.

But this superb night’s entertainment encapsulated most of what Wenger has stood for during his 21 years in command in north London. That is hugely important. And just as much, it pretty much summed up what Jurgen Klopp’s bold and adventurous Liverpool side are about, too.

So if Wenger can stay true to his codes until the end and his side can produce attacking football and comebacks like they did to fight back from 2-0 down against an Anfield team which looked like running away with things, then perhaps it should be enough.

It will certainly be something true to the values around which Wenger has built the club. And perhaps it will end the tendency for the crowd along the Holloway Road to be consumed so much by frustration and disappointment – so that they can simply enjoy having a fine football team to watch occasionally. And to enjoy a little more of what makes them, uniquely, Arsenal.

It can be tough for the supporters to stick with Wenger in this crusade.

A lot of that frustration about Arsenal’s inability to make the most of themselves in the competitions which really count – the Premier League and the Champions League – has been perfectly understandable.

Wenger makes lots of promises on behalf of his players and they haven’t delivered on those two fronts.

But some new realities are apparent in the game. One is that City are planning to dominate for some time and might only be matched by Manchester United in the spending stakes.

The other is that no matter how idealistic it would be for teams like Arsenal and Liverpool to match their prowess going forward with an equal defensive stability, it’s a really hard act to pull off.

Jose Mourinho can’t do it. So he settles for making that stability his paramount priority at Old Trafford. That shows how tough it is, especially in English football.

City are managing it at the moment but their resources mean that comparisons with most of the other elite clubs are becoming difficult to justify.

So maybe that means Arsenal and their fans are going to have to accept that this is how things will remain until the end of the Wenger era. And if that brings more nights like this one, then it’s a fair deal. If it means they still stand for a certain way of playing football, then they will still have something special.

Football isn’t just about winning – or winning things. That’s a fatuous credo that people spout to sound tough. If it were true, why do people support Leyton Orient or Mansfield Town?

It took Arsenal some time to re-discover the best of themselves after a poor first-half on Friday. But they eventually tuned in to the ideals which Wenger will never abandon and actually ended up frustrated that they didn’t claim all three points.

There was a different kind of bonus on show, though – the return of Jack Wilshere to something like the form which makes him such an intelligent, important and compelling creative force.

On evenings like this, he epitomises the Arsenal way more than any other player in the side.

It is to be hoped that the game remembers that two teams like this who excite and thrill as much as they infuriate and frustrate are just as brave and bold as the one currently carrying all before them.

Frankly, neither Arsenal nor Liverpool are going to change under these two managers, are they?