“You are in a catch-22 situation with the Euros. We are not ready to play this kind of game and they get injured like Ramsey today, or you give them a rest and you start the season without many of your players”.
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Arsenal visit defending champions Leicester City on Saturday and Wenger is unsure whether Koscielny, Ozil and Giroud will be ready to return to action at the King Power Stadium.
He said: “We are bitterly disappointed”.
“It’s not pleasant but we have shown in the past that we have the mental strength to bounce back”. We have to be ready next week because we go to Leicester.
“They didn’t have a go at anyone, they supported the team, but at the end I think it’s nearly fair if they are a bit upset with the game, another bad start to a season”. “Once they got to 2-1 up, the game changed because they could wait to counter-attack and this is where they damaged us”. “You have to accept sometimes that you can not control absolutely everything even if you try to be as intelligent as possible”.
Graeme Souness has questioned Arsene Wenger’s decision not to pick Laurent Koscielny as Arsenal shipped four goals at home to Liverpool on the opening day.
Liverpool’s complacency nearly proved critical as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored immediately from kick-off and, 11 minutes later, Calum Chambers made it 4-3 with 15 minutes left to set up a nervy finish. “Scoring four is wonderful, conceding three is the opposite”, Klopp said. “You could see that we dropped physically today”.
“I have a big, big part in the excitement of the last half an hour because it is not allowed to celebrate a fourth goal when there’s still 35 minutes to go”.
Arsenal were rewarded for a positive half of football with a goal from Theo Walcott in the 30th minute.
“This was a really intense game for both sides and Arsenal made something like a little break in their game”.
As fans walked out of the Emirates, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain found himself on the left wing, and with no one in support took it upon himself to beat two defenders and make his way into the box, before beating Mignolet at his near post via a deflection off Dejan Lovren’s boot.
“The manager (Juergen Klopp) said a lot of things we needed to improve on in the second half and I felt we did that”. I don’t know what you call desperate.
“After that we paid for a lack of experience”.
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“I am happy not only because I scored two goals but because the team played well and we got the three points we wanted”.
