It was the third time in four seasons that Arsenal have lost at home in their opening Premier League game and there were boos both after Mane’s goal and at full-time. The Arsenal winger picked himself up to take the resulting penalty but his spot-kick was met with an excellent diving save by goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.
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Arsene Wenger was forced to select a makeshift and inexperienced centre-back pairing in Calum Chambers and debutant Rob Holding, the England Under-21 global signed from Bolton Wanderers in the summer.
Clyne 6/10 | Brilliant play set up Coutinho’s second goal and was solid enough in defence.
Moreno endured a shambolic first-half, giving away the penalty Mignolet saved from Walcott, as well as going missing for Arsenal’s opener, and his all-round poor performance caused all manner of self-inflicted problems down Liverpool’s left-side.
Theo Walcott opened the scoring for the Gunners midway through the first half before Phil Coutinho, Adam Lallana and Sadio Mane brought the visitors 4-1 up inside the first 18 minutes of the second half.
A rampant Liverpool came from behind to beat Arsenal 4-3 at Emirates Stadium, ripping Wenger’s young defense to pieces with consummate ease in the second half.
Just when Liverpool thought they could relax, Arsenal went up the other end and pulled one back.
That gave the home side a glimmer of hope, and the prospect of a memorable comeback grew even more likely when Chambers glanced a header into the far corner with only 15 minutes remaining to continue the topsy-turvy second half.
It wasn’t flawless from Liverpool, not even close, but it was important that they managed to play themselves back into a game that looked lost after the first half-hour at a venue notoriously hard to win at.
Injuries to Per Mertesacker and Gabriel, plus Laurent Koscielny’s lack of match fitness, forced Wenger to deploy 21-year-old Chambers and 20-year-old new boy Rob Holding at centre-back.
Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech reflects on his side’s opening loss to Liverpool to start the 2016 season.
“When we scored for 4-1, we have to make sure that we don’t concede and it happened with a deflection which was a bit of bad fortune”, Mignolet told reporters.
“If somebody wants to watch me lose my glasses, they can”, he laughed. Hopefully the cramp/pull that made Coutinho exit early will have cleared up so he’ll be ready to go in six days. “Liverpool’s front three played very narrowly”.
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“I think he [Holding] did very well overall”.
