Ramsey, despite reaching the semi-finals with Wales, was afforded no such luxury, and the decision backfired when he limped off with a hamstring injury on the hour mark – minutes after Adam Lallana had put Arsenal 2-1 down.
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Ramsey joins an injury list that contains Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista and the loss at the Emirates highlighted Arsenal’s need for defensive reinforcements.
Liverpool’s fluent passing and clinical finishing in the second half was simply too hot for Arsenal to handle.
“Last season they conceded the most goals they have ever done in the Premier League”. We lost this game for many reasons and one of them is (the impact) of Liverpool making it 1-1 just before half-time. “You have to sometimes accept that you can not control absolutely everything, even if you try to be as intelligent as possible”.
“The manager (Juergen Klopp) said a lot of things we needed to improve on in the second half and I felt we did that”.
The afternoon had started brightly for Arsenal as Theo Walcott atoned for having allowed Simon Mignolet to save his penalty by drilling the hosts in front in the 31st minute.
The signs were not so encouraging for Arsenal, which already looks to be struggling to meet fans’ expectations after finishing as runner-up to Leicester last season.
“Certainly the second-half performance at times was very good, especially when we went two or three goals in the lead”. He is different to what we have got. James Milner has admitted that Klopp has asked him to play left-back and could take up a full-back role once he returns from injury for their game against Burnley on Saturday (20 August). It may just be on the evidence of one phenomenal game and one particularly sumptuous hit, but it seems a hard stance to disagree with.
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Well, that’s not the news we were looking for to start the week. Our mistakes were so big it was so easy to talk about so we changed our way of defending and showed them where the spaces are.
