Arsenal v Crystal Palace LIVE: Gunners held to draw but delay Liverpool title celebrations
Arsenal 2-2 Crystal Palace: Jean-Philippe Mateta’s sublime finish snatched a point for Palace and Liverpool must wait a few more days
Arsenal kept Liverpool's Premier League title-winning champagne on ice but only just as they were held to a 2-2 draw at home by Crystal Palace.
First-half goals by Jakub Kiwior and Leandro Trossard looked like being enough for a lacklustre Arsenal against a lively Palace side who equalised with an Eberechi Eze volley.
But there was a late twist as Palace substitute Jean-Philippe Mateta produced a superb chipped finish over Arsenal keeper David Raya in the 83rd minute.
The draw left second-placed Arsenal on 67 points from 34 games with Liverpool on 79 from 33. Had Arsenal lost, Liverpool would have won the title on Wednesday but they can now seal it with one point against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
Follow all the action from the Emirates below:
Glasner reacts
Speaking to Sky Sports, Palace boss Oliver Glasner called the game “excellent”.
"Credit to the players. The reaction [to recent results] was amazing today. I'm proud of what the players showed. We scored amazing goals. I watched many Arsenal games and I can't remember a team with as many clear chances as we had.
"We want to show our identity and personality. It's important to keep this energy and confidence for the semi-final on Saturday.
"It was not our goal to decide the title, it was our goal to win the game. I think a draw is a very good result. More important is the performance.
“We are back on the track. That's what we need,” he added.
FULL-TIME! Arsenal 2-2 Crystal Palace
No reaction from any Arsenal personnel yet, but we’ll bring you it soon.
Trossard: "We just need to be better"
"The quality today wasn’t there compared to our last game. We were nowhere near that and we got punished. We need to raise the level with our big game coming up,” says Leandro Trossard.
"We want to win every game, in any competition. Especially after the last game, we had a good feeling. We just need to be better."
"It was just the basics sometimes. Not passing on the right foot or taking a touch too much. It was myself as well, I just wasn’t good enough and we need to raise this in the next few days.
"It will be good to have six days now and prepare for this [PSG] game with 100 per cent focus. It will be a different performance,” he adds.
Arteta reacts
Speaking to BBC Sport, Mikel Arteta says that Arsenal “dropped our standards today and credit to Crystal Palace”.
“We struggled to find consistency in the game. We gave the ball away in simply ways and we were late in everything we did. I am disappointed,” he added.
On whether the schedule played a factor, Arteta said: "Yes, it does. And we have so many players out and not available and therefore you drop certain standards. But we have to do much better than we did today.
"We have spoke about avoiding our focus being elsewhere. We have enough time to prepare for PSG but today we didn't deliver enough rights to win the game.
"It is nice to have long gap, we need it and we need players back to full strength."
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