Arsene Wenger reckons Arsenal are in a catch 22 situation when it comes to the fitness of their players after several sat out Sunday’s remarkable 4-3 opening day defeat to Liverpool.
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And Liverpool roared into a 4-1 lead with three goals in 14 minutes after the break from Adam Lallana, Coutinho and Sadio Mane on his Premier League debut for the Reds.
Clyne 6/10 | Brilliant play set up Coutinho’s second goal and was solid enough in defence.
Ramsey was a part of the Wales squad that reached the Euro 2016 semi-final, although he missed that game through suspension and the perils of rushing him back were highlighted when he limped off in the 62nd minute.
Iwobi left soon after with a thigh injury, and with a trip to reigning champions Leicester City up next for his side, Wenger admitted that he doesn’t know when his side will be physically ready to compete.
The trio were left out of today’s game, the absence of Koscielny in particular was felt as Per Mertescker and Gabriel were injured.
“I’m not sure. But I would say we jumped into cold water today”, said Klopp.
Klopp said he bore responsibility for his players switching off in the middle of the second half by encouraging a mass celebration in front of Arsenal fans after the fourth goal. I have said many times we are working very hard to get one or two players in.
Things went wrong quickly after that, with problems obvious all over the place for Arsenal, but on a positive note we did score three goals and it is just one match.
“But we are not stupid. Sometimes you have to accept you can not control absolutely everything even if you try to be as intelligent as possible”.
Klopp celebrated Mane’s goal by allowing the Senegalese forward to leap onto his back, but he had to endure a nervy finale as goals from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Calum Chambers gave Arsenal hope.
“Then you look on the watch and see there is still half an hour to go and that is not too good”.
Alberto Moreno concedes a penalty after bringing down Theo Walcott 1. Then we came back in the game, had more direction and were even more compact. “He [Moreno] played the ball is how I saw it, but it’s not important because Simon could make the save”.
“I think it’s linked with the fact that we had some players out for a long period last season and hopefully we will have everybody available for much longer this season”.
“After that we paid for a lack of experience”.
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“The crowd was a little bit angry obviously and Arsenal fought back, showed character and scored the goals”.
