Talking Points: Arsenal 3-4 Liverpool

The first Heavyweight fixture of the season did not fail to deliver as Liverpool ran riot at the Emirates clinching an entertaining victory. Arsenal were left in pieces at times by the Liverpool attack movement as expected due to lack of experience at the back. Let’s take a look at the talking points from the game.

1. Coutinho runs the show

Since the past few seasons the main man for Liverpool has, hands-down, been Coutinho. Still only 24 years old, the young Brazilian tore the Arsenal back four to pieces and it could finally be the season for him to standout and become the best player in the league. But as the second half was coming to a close he pulled up and was looking in some serious discomfort. Let’s hope it isn’t something serious.

2. Arsenal in desperate need of defensive reinforcements

Approaching the Liverpool game, all of Arsenal’s experienced centre-backs were unavailable. All Wenger had were the unconvincing Chambers and the newbie Holding. As expected both started and had a comfortable first half as Liverpool struggled to find their rhythm. But when the Reds started clicking, both the young players were beaten again and again with no respite coming from the opposition. Mertesacker and Gabriel will be out for many months and Arsenal need atleast one if not two commanding and experienced solutions to the crisis who could pair up with Kosielny. Mustafi Incoming?

3. Klopp still has a few problems to sort out

Even after they convincingly beat Arsenal in their own backyard, Liverpool can’t take anything for granted. On the back of Coutinho’s superb playmaking efforts they came back from a goal down to making it 4-1 at one point of time. But immediately after Mane scored their fourth, Arsenal showed brilliant character to fight back and give their fans some hope. When you’re winning 4-1 you should be able to comfortably impose your authority in the midfield and not panic at the back, which was exactly what happened and Arsenal brought it back to 4-3. Although the comeback eventually couldn’t transpire but this issue surely cannot be overlooked.

4. Injuries – Something entirely wrong going on at the Emirates

From an Arsenal fan’s point of view their season well and truely kicked off today as Alex Iwobi and Aaron Ramsey both limped off the pitch leading to some serious allegations against Wenger’s training methods yet again. Even if his training methods is not what might be the root cause of the problem, something fundamental has to change. After the match the Arsenal Manager confirmed that Iwobi was not in a serious situation but Ramsey’s was a more worrying one. The season has only just started and it already looks like a torrid atmosphere over at the Emirates.