A forlorn Arsene Wenger watches his side go down at Anfield
There were renewed calls for Wenger’s head from Gunners fans after this defeat to a rampant Liverpool team – and even calls to boycott the next home game against Bournemouth on Saturday week.
But Arsenal manager Wenger pointed the finger at his players, accusing them of lacking fight.
He said: “What went wrong? Everything. I think from the first minute to the last minute we were not at the level requested for such a game.
“Not physically, not technically, not mentally and we were punished. That’s basically it.
“Of course, you can analyse the chances we gave away, but I just think overall the performance was not at the requested level.
Our performance was absolutely disastrous
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger
“It’s true that today we were an easy opponent for Liverpool. The result is a consequence of our performance. We were not good enough. We were beaten everywhere physically, in the end I believe we made it easier for them, and the mistakes gave them a cushion.
“It was shocking the goal before half-time but our performance was absolutely disastrous.”
Asked for the reasons why Arsenal were so bad, he added: “ That’s a question which is very difficult to answer straight away after the game. There are some reasons, but I don’t think too much should come on that now.
“Last season I said that after 30 games. Now we have played three games. We have played one home game and two away games. Given our first two games, our performances were quote good, but today the performance was not acceptable at that level.
Sky pundit Graeme Souness said Arsenal were like “a team of schoolboys” and Wenger apologised to Gunners fans who booed their team’s performance.
He said: “I don’t want to answer that, that’s part of the crowd’s feelings. If I am the problem, I am sorry, but I believe all together we lose. The only thing we can do is come back and give them a better level of performance.”
Goals from Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Mo Salah and substitute Daniel Sturridge had Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp purring.
He said: “The performance was perfect and the result is the result of the performance. We wanted to show our ambition against a very strong side. There were 11 outstanding individual performances.”
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