Positives today: a few cameos from Pépé. Otherwise, it's as you were since last year. And Mustafi isn't even on the pitch! That summariser on Sky is describing a different Arsenal.

Couldn’t agree more. I fancy us to beat them at home later in the season which sounds crazy after this. But it make sense when you think about players bedding in and players coming back.

Could really do without a NLD to follow this.

Yay! A goal.

Thanks I feel better now.

At least it’s at home.

And there’s my man Torreria. Have that.

Two more now and I might still have time to delete my last few posts...

Game on!!!!

I think Monreal has played well

Fair. His lack of pace has been exposed, which was always very likely.

Guendouzi and Ceballos below average and bad respectively.

Pépé class touches if lacking a bit of fight and end product.

Torreria looks out best player since coming on.

Luiz again lack of pace more than anything which you’d expect at 32.

Most everyone else ok. Liverpool - ruthless.

Disappointed not to play Lacazette from the start. I’d be interested to see how many other teams decide to not play one of their first choice strikers at Anfield.

With the best teams you can name their best 11 and the formation they’ll play. I think arsenal have played 3 different formations so far this season

Your posts are safe. Not too much of an unexpected result though ...

Yeah didn’t really understand that. Not fully fit??

AMN is our worst player today. The number of wrong passes and mistakes were far too many for a premier league player.

Willock couldn't do anything, as was Ceballos. That made our midfield totally non existent. Guendozi is again all huff and puff but no end result. He is becoming Elneny II. Xhaka is his usual slow-mo style.

The playing out from our penalty area is a disaster, or two, waiting to happen. But to what end? We hardly launch a quick attack from those passes. It goes a full circle back to the penalty area. And by that time, opposing players have already retreated back. All attempted initiative to get past them quickly gone. And minutes wasted while chasing for goals. This is the most frustrating of Emery's tactics. What exactly is he playing for?

Oh well, hope he learns from this and get that victory next week. Between the 2, next week is much more significant.

I thought the consolation goal and last 15 mins glossed over what was a pretty inept performance from both team and manager. This game was a spectacle being watched all around the world and people could have been forgiven for thinking they were watching Liverpool playing a relegation candidate.

I thought Emery was supposed to be the tactical genius that Wenger was not. He didn't do bugger all to change things until it was too late.

Overall I'm just sad because the gulf in class was enormous, embarassingly so and it's not like we didn't have some talented players out there who should have been able to compete. We just never had the belief or the tactical set-up to do so.

Sadly, after a promising start Luiz provided the defensive horror show that every one warned us about.

??? I suppose we’ve all got our view but I can’t see that at all Goonie

Edit sorry got your name mixed up, you guys always seem to post together apologies

AMN is not and will never be a right back. He's good when he can burst forward into crossing positions but when he is asked to defend as a RB should against quality players he lacks the know-how or positional sense. Not his fault, but unless someone is prepared to spend hours on the training ground teaching him the basic art of defending (and it is an art) he will always struggle to defend properly.

Just watched the 24 minutes highlight package. Have to agree that we were terrible. The worst were Luis and Cela. I can’t tell if Xhaka was bad because in 24 minutes of highlights his name was not called once. Aubameyang seemed to be absent as well. Terrible spineless performance. A repeat against Spurs and I want Emery out.

Emery let slip after the game that he’s about to be sold to Real Sociedad.

I can not understand that at all as I think it leaves us very short at the back.

Maybe Tierney is close to coming back.

Even if it leaves us a little short it might be hard to turn down if we got offered a decent fee.

It wasn’t that bad a performance until the goals went in. We were at least competing for every ball and displaying courage.

It’s a David Luiz horror show, what on Earth was he thinking for the penalty and he dived in like a rookie on Salah for their third. I think you may see him dropped for spurs.

Asking for Emery’s head if we lose a north London derby is frankly ridiculous. We are a work in progress and need our players back and new signings integrated before you can make a judgement

Been saying for ages that this playing out from the back at all costs needs to stop. Against Burnley it was clear that if we tried the same against Liverpool that it would put us in all sorts of trouble. Surprise surprise we gift Liverpool an entire half to try and score. I can't even count how many turnovers from trying to play from the back. Might have been a slightly different scoreline if one of the 3 good counterattack chances had been taken by Pépé or Aubameyang. But as expected, Liverpool scored first and we fell apart. Luiz, also as expected with a total anuerism and pulling on Salahs shirt in a way impossible to miss.

I think general results will improve this season but we're miles below being a team that anyone is going to fear. Least of all the Top 6 rivals.

Yet another predictable beating..

What the hell happened to this Emery dosier on every player and how to improve them? He hasn't improved a single player yet.

And where is the tactical brain with plan b when playing out from the back is not working?.

Emery changed the setup again today but it looked badly under prepared and not the time to start practicing with new formations.

I think the playing out from the back doesn’t need to stop but just put some variation into it.

I think it’s unfair to pin the result on Emery. Liverpool are one of the best teams in Europe right now. The set up was the right one, keep it tight and compact with people behind the ball. It was working until the usual lapse allowed the first goal. It would have been crazy to play both strikers. The only criticism for me was he played Xhaka rather than Torreira but I think there’s some concerns over Torreiras fitness.

The reality is because Emery isn’t a big name people are pinning any bad result on him. Sometimes you just need to put your hands up and say we played a better team.

Btw saying Emery hasn’t improved players is unfair. Bellerin, Holding and Iwobi all had improved seasons last year. This is the problem with the way people are judging Emery. Last week city sold Mangala on a free 4 years after buying him for 42 million. Nobody was criticising Guardiola saying he couldn’t improve Mangala.

We have conceded 4 goals this season and you can directly sheet 3 of them to Luiz. As for my comments on Emery out - bit of overreaction because of how poor I thought we were. Whoever Liverpool played - Norwich ? - they had more chances than us.

I was concerned that we seemed to play ‘park the bus,’. Without looking like we could actually defend. Individual performances like last night cannot be tolerated against Spurs.

The trouble is that you and many others on here are assuming Tierney will be the ducks gut. But we simply don’t know. We are placing large expectations on him being really good as a fullback (not attacking) and staying injury free. We have a number of current players who can bomb forward but defensively they can be taken apart Sead K and AMN as examples.

Reference to my earlier post before the game that if the score line gets out of hand, such as 3-0, I will change the channel to Home & Garden TV and it will be more interesting to see what tile the hostess chooses over watching the game.

I thought you kept up with my posts? lol...joking.

I thought we started well. Fact is, Liverpool picked up right where they left off in the CL final and my guess is would be able to compete at the top in any league in Europe right now. I think they look better than City right now. Barcelona would have a devil of a time beating them right now.
Yes, Luiz made a couple crucial mistakes but if it wasn't him it was going to be someone else and he is an improvement (if only slight) over Mustafi. We are not on their level and anyone who thought that we would get a win there must have been had a couple xanax with their wine before the game.
We must be judged against Man Utd, Tottenham and Chelsea not City and LFC. The best we can hope for against those two away is a draw and if its a loss, it be kept to 1 goal difference and a draw at home.
We don't have a good defense and that is going to exploited against the top two sides. So, I'm not particularly upset. No one likes losing but considering where we are as a team to LFC, 3-1 is fair. Its early days, we forget about it, work on a settled XI that knows how to play with each other and see if it takes us into the top 4 and perhaps a cup final.

The big plusses for me is Pépé. His first start and he was immediately dangerous. We have a lot of pace up front now to get behind defenses. Woe to any club that plays a high back line against us. Ceballos looked good. Our achilles heel is obvious. Its our back line. Bellerin comes back will help a little, but it won't be enough. It's just a weakness we'll have to shoulder and hopefully we'll get someone in the January window. In the interim, its Kevin Keegan football perhaps as the best way to stay in contention.

Lastly, we went to Anfield in arguably their best PL side assembled and had decent looks at goal.

Be thankful you didn't watch the whole thing. We kept them scoreless for 40 but apart from a few counters in the first half in which we really should have scored, Liverpool were totally dominant. They looked like scoring at any minute and we never did.

Emery set us up to defend. But we had neither the personnel nor the defensive nous to do that for 90 minutes. Even if we had scored 2 from the counters, I still wouldn't have been confident that we could hold on for a win.

Fair credit to Liverpool though. They were the better team in every department and are a good team to watch even if it is us getting a clobbering.

I would certainly put Liverpool in its present state in the top 3 or 4 in Europe at worst. At this point in the season, early days, lets not get too despondent. We'll probably look like a different side in a 2 months, maybe less.

Morning Gaz,

Letting Monreal go at this juncture is bizarre.

For a start Tierney is some way off being fit and we do not know if he will suffer any kind of recurrence of his injury or setbacks in his rehab. Presumably we aren't intending to just chuck him in and hope he doesn't miss another match all season.

Which leaves us with Kola as the LB option, a player who has proven to be a defensive liability in a back four because his positional sense is awful and he cannot defend one v one.

There always seems to be a sense of inevitability about the result at Anfield. We never seem to catch Liverpool on an off day, I suspect that is partly because they are super concentrated and motivated for a top 6 class (novel thinking) and also because our tactics aren’t always the sort that Liverpool hate playing against.

So our tactics seem to be to defend very narrow with tha back 4, concede the flanks and pack the midfield and leave two guys up top who have pace and skill and can go 2v2 against their CB....And for the first half Liverpool really didn’t create that much in fact the two best chances were ours. The first goal is so crucial, right on the stroke of half time. If Pépé or Aubameyang had scored their chance would the result have been any different? Possibly not, but for a team like ours who seems to fly when we’re confident and cower when things go against us, that first goal could have been crucial for us.

The disappointment for me is continually changing the system, I think we need to decide what formation we play and just tweak the tactics accordingly, small nudges to that formation. 4-2-3-1. Using two of our best players as wide forwards may have given Liverpool’s full backs something to think about. Instead of playing a traditional 10 we play a flat midfield 3 to match up with Liverpool.

To be honest, against Liverpool you can play any tactics and formation but if you can’t match the pace and intensity of their play you’ll be on s hiding to nothing. Staggering how they do it every game and play virtually the same 11, the full backs and front 3 never change, they get through so much work rate without tiring or without injuries. Look at our outfield 10 yesterday and which of those 10 have pace, mobility and intensity in their game? Maybe 3 (Aubameyang, Pépé, amn....and the intensity is questionable for all of them) Willock is fairly quick but very young and shouldn’t be expected to lead this team. The rest of the team lacks pace

Top 2 easily. Their European champions and runners up in the last two years, lost just 1 game in the league last season. It is then and City a long way ahead of the rest in Europe at the moment

As did Norwich, more than us.
And Southampton should have taken a 2-2 from Liverpool if ings taps in a sitter at the end

Morning TG,

Competing for every ball is the very least you would expect from any PL outfit.

I've seen teams at the bottom of the table show more courage and composure on the ball than we did.

Our game plan appeared to consist of parking the bus, giving their fullbacks free reign to send crosses into the box with the misguided assumption that we could deal with them and hoping for the occasional counter. The fact we held out for so long was more to do with the lack of quality on the crosses and final balls than any great backs-to-the wall defensive performance.

I thought David Luiz might be a reasonable acquisition give his ability on the ball but he basically cost us two goals through utter stupidity. If Mustafi had done what he did fans would be wanting him strung up.

My disappointment with yesterday is not that we lost, I expected that, but the manner in which we lost. I had hoped to see more of a equal contest, I hoped to see signs that we had improved and could give anyone a game, home or away. Instead what I witnessed was a park the bus performance filled with panic and indecision and a general lack of courage in possession. The only bright spot was the occasional dribble from Pépé.

Emery failed to change anything until it was too late and I continue to have big concerns over his management.

The other thing I find frustrating is Emery's interviews. He's a bright man but you would have thought after a year working and living in England he would be able to string together a few coherent sentences in english, instead of the incomprehensible stuff he comes out with. I mostly have no clue as to what he is saying or the message he is trying to convey and he seems to overuse words like "protagonists" and "our idea". It's like watching Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

I get the bit where speaking to the press and media in a foreign language is not easy for anyone but he needs some coaching I think to help his media work.

I had the same thoughts about Luiz -v Mustafi. Given his experience I don't think we should cut Luiz much slack. I thought he was responsible for Burnley's goal last week as well. I have real concerns that we have added another dud to the payroll.

I don't think Mustafi will leave without us paying him to do so. I think he still has 2 years on his contract left.

It took me by surprise. I suppose the deal is not done yet but I don't know why we would even contemplate such a deal. If he wants to go how about selling him in January when we know a lot more about Tierney's reliability and abilities. We can then put the money towards a new CB.

I’m not entirely sure why though. What had anyone seen in narrow 1 goal victories over hopeless Newcastle and limited Burnley at home to suggest we’d go toe to toe with Liverpool at Anfield all of a sudden?

3 of our preferred starters are out of our defence and it was the first start for Pépé ever in an Arsenal shirt, away to a dominant Liverpool.


I’m unhappy with the the result but as I said I’m also happy to ignore it and keep improving and wouldn’t be surprised if we beat them at home later in the season.