We got beaten 4-0 up there that day but I will swear blind for as long as I live that it didn't tell the story of the game. I remember Liverpool scoring from their first attack after about ten minutes through Gerrard, who smashed home a shot from the edge of the box when we failed to clear a corner properly and then scoring a second after about 65 minutes. But the abiding memory I had about that game was that either side of those two opening goals, Liverpool had hardly had a kick.
In fact, I remember the Anfield crowd getting seriously agitated with their team around the hour mark (even though their team were 1-0 up) as we knocked the ball around for fun. However, when Michael Owen bundled in the second goal totally against the run of play, we fell apart and Fowler and Nicky Barmby (now there's a name from the past) turned what seemed for so long an unlikely victory into a rout.
In many ways, Saturday's game at the Riverside mirrored that game in so far as we were completely in charge for the first 45 minutes yet, as was the case at Anfield in the game I have just talked about, we went in one-nil down at the break due to the only shot Boro had on or off target in the whole of the first half.
It was Yakubu of course that was the man who had the strike five minutes shy of the break and taking into account the little bit of luck he had in scoring combined with the chances we had and missed, I had the feeling that it wasn't going to be our day from that moment on.
My fears were confirmed around the hour mark. When Hleb tried to burst on to a one-two inside Boro's box my initial instinct was that it wasn't a penalty (though subsequent opinions I have heard over the weekend strongly differ with that it must be said). Then the ball went straight up the other end and Pascal Cygan (who else?) decided to have one of his defensive brainstorms that proved yet again to be oh so costly for us.
Cygan could have done a million things when Boro keeper Schwarzer boomed a quick clearance down the middle but instead, having only been under token pressure from Yakubu, he headed the ball aimlessly straight up in the air. When Cygan failed to react in any way, Yakubu seized on to the loose ball. Gilberto, in his haste to try and rescue the situation, tackled Yakubu and inadvertently prodded the ball back straight in to the path of Maccarone who was the blind side of Cygan who, as the last man criminally decided to step up and play offside. Maccarone couldn't believe his luck and once he was clean through, he coolly stuck the ball past a hopelessly exposed Jens Lehmann.
At that point I looked up at my living room ceiling, sighed, groaned and shook my head in disbelief. My views on Cygan have been well chronicled over the last few years and I'm not going to waste any more energy venting my spleen about this guy. Suffice to say that this guy was not a rookie in terms of age when he joined us in the first place and the catalogue of mistakes he has made ever since tells any Gooner with an ounce of knowledge about the game all that they need to know about his quality (or lack of it) as a defender.
Now at this point it would be easy for me to be the typically fickle fan and point the finger not just at Cygan but also Wenger here. I mean, every Arsenal fan in the world knows that Cygan and Toure are far from being the dream ticket at the heart of our defence and Toure has not made any secret of the fact that he has problems whenever he is paired with Cygan at the back.
Having said that, it was Wenger's choice to put the two of them together, rest Senderos and not even consider Campbell as an alternative on the bench. So, for all Wenger's annoyance at his defence (and I assume that Cygan was an integral source of that given that he was the man who definitely at fault for the decisive second goal) I suppose you could say that Wenger contributed to his own downfall.
Having said that, there are times when being a manager is a bit like crime – it doesn't pay. And when you have supposedly experienced players making individual elementary mistakes it's something that a manager, even one that has been as successful as Wenger, cannot legislate for.
What a manager also cannot legislate for is the fact that his side make enough chances to have the game virtually wrapped up in the first 25 minutes only to miss the damn lot. Young Reyes was excellent particularly in the first half but to be honest he should have been at least two thirds of the way to claiming the match ball by half time, never mind full time.
With him squandering three great chances to score with his favoured left foot, the fact he finally managed to get a goal with his swinger of a right having rounded Schwarzer at the death, was, in my eyes, all the more galling in that it summed up what was truly frustrating about our whole day at the Riverside. But for all that went down by the Riverside, I don't think that you can be as simplistic to say that our defeat was down to the fact that Campbell, Vieira or Henry wasn't playing.
I have seen the Arsenal play countless matches in the past both home and abroad even WITH Henry, Campbell and Vieira in the side where we have made still made countless chances and STILL failed to win in recent years. I defy any Arsenal fan to say different. Want an example? How about when Charlton beat us 4-2 at Highbury just under four years ago?
I remember watching this game on Pay Per View on a Sunday afternoon in November. It was no exaggeration that we could have scored seven goals in the first half hour. As it was a solitary strike was all we had from Henry to show for our dominance. However by half time, Steve Brown had equalised from a set piece, our goalie that day Richard Wright, proceeded to punch another Charlton free kick into the back of his own net at the North Bank end and somehow Charlton went in at the break 2-1 up.
We continued to make chances the second half only for Claus Jensen to make it 3-1 with an inspired chip and then Jason Euell scored a fourth for Charlton on the break and as I said we lost 4-2 in the end. Now, the first point to make here is that Henry (and Vieira) both played that afternoon and Henry was as guilty that day of missing chances as Reyes was up at the Riverside at the weekend.
The second thing is that in football every dog has their day and there are times when you simply have to accept that things are not going to go your way regardless of who happens to be available or not. That's how football is and some times there just isn't any value in blaming a reverse on the fact that so and so was missing. Boro got the breaks at the right time on the day whereas we didn't and for me that was all there was to it. In fact I was more annoyed by Ashley Cole coming out and bleating in the press about the fact that Vieira has gone and how we lack leadership. Given that his commitment to Arsenal is not totally beyond scepticism I think that he was just about the last person entitled to talk about any troubles we have behind the scenes.
Sometimes you have to accept that life isn't always going to be beer and skittles. In the face of adversity, you just have to knuckle down, forget about everything that it going on elsewhere, focus on getting your own house in order and making the best of what we have got, not what we haven't. If we are going to move forward at this moment in time there is simply no other way.
I'm not being defeatist when I say this. I'm just not prepared to get hysterical and start blowing things out of proportion. People outside of Highbury are convinced that Arsenal were in some sort of decline long before this season started. Well, I would say first of all that I can think of at least 89 other clubs that would killed to have had the success that we have had in the last four years alone. And if, having won five major trophies (more than anybody else in this country over the last four years by the way) and a couple of Community Shields just for good measure, constitutes a decline, then I will gladly take it every time.
Maybe, just maybe, we will have to take a step backwards this season in order to come forward. But I still believe that we will not be too far away when the pots of silver are being handed out at the end of this season. I would love to get the Premiership title back more than anything but, although our position in the table isn't great right now, I cannot remember the last time anyone won the title by the middle of September either.
Mind you, the middle of September does tend to be a pivotal time in the football season because it heralds the start of European competition both in the UEFA Cup and of course, the Champions League. Arsenal's quest for Europe's Holy Grail begins at home to what is a very unknown quantity- FC Thun.
Being the football junkie that I am, even I had to scratch my head wondering who on earth this lot were and where they are from. Apparently they are a Swiss outfit that were, as recently as nine years ago, a part-time amateur club.
Still for them to get to the Champions League qualifiers by way of beating much more recognised Swiss clubs such as Basle, Grasshoppers Zurich, Servette (were we got Senderos from) and Young Boys to the title is no mean feat.
And when you think that they beat former European Cup finalists Malmo and Dynamo Kiev to get into the competition proper, they must have something about them. So I will be watching with a curious eye to see what this lot are all about.
My attitude to the Champions League is to keep an open mind and I have Liverpool to thank for that. They showed that the Champions League is without doubt a lottery that anyone can win. I mean, how else do you explain the fact that last year Arsenal failed to even make it to the quarter finals having been the only English team to win their group without losing a single game whereas Liverpool went on to win the Champions League having lost TWICE in the group phase and virtually scraping into the last 16 as runners up in that group with effectively four minutes to spare?
There's no doubt that the Arsenal are due some luck in the competition when it really matters. After all, we found out to our cost that it only takes one really bad night to put you out of the competition. But, as I keep saying, it really important that for everyone connected with Arsenal tries to take things at home and abroad one game at a time.
It doesn't matter to me whether we manage to beat this Swiss lot 1-0 or 6-0. What matters on Wednesday is winning, restoring some confidence and taking things from there and giving ourselves a platform to build on.
Its from little acorns that oak tress grow and it important that the players not to start feeling sorry for themselves and remember that above everything else on Wednesday night.