Liverpool and Arsenal drew nil-nil and the big winner was probably Mohamed Salah’s agent.

It’s not that Salah or Sadio Mane’s representatives need any help emphasising their value, but wherever they were watching this semi-final first leg, they might be the only ones with Anfield connections lighting a cigar at full-time. 

One could imagine them heading into the next round of contract negotiations with a recording of the game. Their case for the next mega deal may involve no more than pressing play and threatening the Liverpool hierarchy with having to endure another 95 minutes of watching back-up attackers running into cul-de-sacs, and making a hitherto suspect Arsenal defence look like it possesses a spine. Worse still, they might be inclined to paint a picture of a post-Salah and Mane world in which Liverpool waiting 80 minutes for a shot on target becomes the norm.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of paying any player £400,000 a week – football’s amateur economists can debate that ad nauseum without having to meet any of the financial burden – a sneak peak into the Anfield universe without the two African strikers proved an unedifying experience for the Kop.

True, credit must be given to Arsenal’s rearguard action which earned a goalless draw. They are the first team to keep a clean sheet in this stadium since Real Madrid in last year’s Champions League. 

Bizarrely, they were helped rather than hindered by the 24th-minute red card for Granit Xhaka, Mikel Arteta able to play four centre-backs and create so much congestion in the Arsenal penalty area it resembled a Downing Street garden party.

Jurgen Klopp can point to the fact it is not the first time Liverpool, or indeed any elite team, has toiled against ten men. They went 45 minutes against Chelsea earlier this season without breaking through. Salah and Mane were on fire in the preceding and subsequent games, so the curiosity of the circumstances played its part. 

Arsenal reassembled and used every defender at their disposal, Arteta empowered to be cautious where with eleven men there would have been more of an expectation to attack. That changed the dynamic and they were admirably up to the task.