Arsenal Liverpool match was pretty much insane

 

It’s August 14 and we may have already had the game of the season. 

Liverpool beat Arsenal 4-3 in an incredible game at the Emirates which had pretty much everything – goals, injuries, Jurgen Klopp losing his glasses and, of course, Arsenal fans calling for Arsene Wenger to be sacked.

The first hint that this was going to be a ridiculous match came when Theo Walcott took a penalty.

 

Tongue stuck out, eyes fixed on a point where the ball may once have been: you can tell just from looking at the picture what happened.

It was saved. Saved by Simon Mignolet, which is in itself a pretty remarkable thing.

What was equally remarkable was that Walcott then made up for his error exactly 69 seconds later by scoring what was clearly a much harder chance.

Theo misses the easy hits and hits the hard ones.

You can't play with my heart like this man.

Liverpool didn’t really do anything in the first half but went in level when Philippe Coutinho scored an absolutely beautiful free-kick.

Then in the second half, everything kicked up a level.

Four minutes after the restart, Adam Lallana scored an actual goal, so that meant there had been decent end product from both him and Walcott in the same game.

Klopp was so taken aback he lost his glasses.

Around about this point, Aaron Ramsey picked up an injury.

Also around about this point, Arsenal fans realised – if they didn’t know it already – that this season was going to be exactly like every other season in the last decade.

With Per Mertesacker also injured – and Mesut Ozil, Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud rested after Euro 2016 – it was bare-bones stuff from the Gunners on opening day.

Is this peak Arsenal? No strikers, no defenders, player injured and they've thrown away a lead - in the first game of the season? Amazing

— FitbaThatba (@fitbathatba) August 14, 2016

Probably the best goal of the game was the one that put Liverpool 3-1 up.

It was Coutinho’s second and contained a ludicrous number of passes in the build-up.

19 - There were 19 passes leading up to Coutinho's 2nd goal against Arsenal. Silky.

But if you’re a fan of individual goals, you might prefer Sadio Mane’s effort on his competitive Liverpool debut, as he cut in from the right and curled it towards the goal.

 

If you’re wondering where that one ended up, the answer is the top corner.

He then ran over to the touchline, leapt on to Klopp’s back and grabbed himself a quick piggyback. Why not? He’d probably earned it.

Arsenal at this point were looking absolutely dreadful, but somehow you knew they’d come back into it, and they did so with a goal from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

That meant former Southampton players Walcott, Lallana, Mane and the Ox had all notched.

Somewhere in there Coutinho limped off injured too, so surely Arsenal had a chance of bagging a leveller with 15 minutes still to play…

But it wasn’t to be.

It left Arsenal fans wondering why a load of their best players weren’t playing.

Martial, Sagna & Matuidi played for their clubs but Koscielny, Ozil & Giroud didn't. Anyone explain this Euro 2016 rest thing a bit further?

Arsene Wenger to blame. Known about the Per injury for weeks and penny pinching has already cost us 3 points. That was so winnable.

If you truly believe Wenger is the man after making the same mistakes over and over again then you really don't want this club to succeed.

I can understand fans frustration, Arsenal are becoming a laughing stock under Wenger. Time for a change.

And now, with the “Wenger Out” brigade in full voice, we can truly say the Premier League season has begun.

What a game.