Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker has admitted that his side were never in control of their Premier League match against Liverpool at Anfield.

The Gunners were minutes away from victory in the clash as strikes from Mathieu Debuchy and Olivier Giroud had handed them the lead in the second half after Philippe Coutinho's opener for the home side.

However, Martin Skrtel scored in the 97th minute to earn Brendan Rodgers's men a share of the spoils, and Mertesacker reckons that his team weren't at their best at Anfield.

He told the club's official website: "If you remember last year we had a very different performance to what we had today. We tried to stop Raheem Sterling going through on the back four with his speed. We didn't find our own game.

"We realised we had to stick together and find space [and knew] if we got chances in the second half we could have scored. We did and then we tried to defend in the last minute, which we did but not as good as I thought [we could have].

"Overall we have to take responsibility for our game - we want to dictate but we were on always on the back foot. I'm not really pleased with the performance but we take the point now and we're looking forward to December 26."

Arsenal sit in sixth place in the Premier League after 17 matches this season.