It’s becoming a bit of a tradition now, wave away the opening day of the Premier League because it will ultimately end in disappointment for Arsenal.
Since 2010, the Gunners have taken just six points from a possible 18 on the first day of the new season, a stat that leaves the same question on every Arsenal fans lips.
We could stop and talk about how the squad wasn’t well enough prepared, but that’s just becoming a regular thing now and Arsene Wenger has a week to turn things around.
Despite having to sit through the same old start to our campaign, we picked up on some major talking points in and amongst the seven goals, here’s just three to ponder ahead of Arsenal’s showdown with the Champions on Saturday.
1 – Lost Alexis
Arguably our best player in the squad was forced to try a new role at number nine on Sunday afternoon, a decision that Wenger had no choice in doing.
Due to Olivier Giroud’s fatigue, we started our best winger in the centre forward role and after 20 minutes it was already a mistake and Liverpool’s defence were laughing.
Now I’m not saying that Alexis can’t do a job in that position, he does it for Chile year after year but there’s a massive difference between his country and this club.
It was as if the Arsenal team were under the illusion that Giroud was still up at the top, playing long ball after long ball to try to get an attacking spell going.
That’s never going to work when you’ve got 5ft 7in player up against a pair of 6ft 2in-plus centre backs of Dejan Lovren and Liverpool’s new boy Ragnar Klavan.
Time after time Alexis was beaten to the headers, which not only stopped us from getting any supply to the likes of Ramsey and Iwobi, it also meant Alexis gave up on himself.
If you’re going to play Alexis in a position like that, you need someone like Giroud to play alongside him and act as a duo up front, it’s the only way to beat a resilient defence that held a high line.
We’ve seen it in the Euro’s as a perfect example, Giroud and Griezmann complimented each other so well, one would do the dirty work by knocking the ball down or come into receive, whilst the other runs on through the defenders with a chance of a through ball.