Premier League fixture 1: Arsenal 3-4 Liverpool
What did happen to Arsenal’s defense? It seemed that the club was prepared for the start of the season with a convincing pre-season tour in the US. 90Soccer discussed with Bellerin and Monreal only a few ago they shared with us their expectations for this coming season.. to go higher and to win. This opening game conceding 4 goals at home is concerning, not promising at all. the game was tied at the break 1-1 but the start of the second half was horrendous for Arsenal with 3 goals and being down 4-1. They did come back later on but was insufficient.
Coach Arsene Wenger comments on the defeat:
“We prepared well the players we have in but I think you have to consider we have been a bit unlucky as well. We have lost Mertesacker and Gabriel in preparation, and Koscielny is not fit.
It could have been [so much better] because I feel we had a great first half. [We were] very dynamic going forward. We dropped in the second half a little bit, I believe a little bit for psychological reasons, just [because of] the 1-1 just before half-time. After that we dropped physically as well and 2-1 straight after half-time was a huge blow. I believe that we kept going and we have shown mental strength and overall there are many positive aspects in our game, but we are very disappointed because we lost the game.
It was a contrast between the two halves. We lost this game for many reasons and was one of them is [the psychological impact] of Liverpool making it 1-1 just before half-time. The second one is that physically we are not capable of maintaining the level, because not all the players have the same level of preparation. Maybe we lacked a bit of experience but if you look well at the goals, I don’t think it was necessarily the inexperienced players that cost us the goals today.
We have to take it like that and prepare for the next game. I’m convinced that there’s a lot to come from this team and from this group and we have to recover from that blow and prepare for our next game”.
