Arsenal were embarrassed by Liverpool 5-1 at Anfield on Saturday, despite taking an early lead against the league leaders.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles put Arsenal into the lead with a nice finish after good work from Alex Iwobi 11 minutes into the game, but by the 16th minute, Liverpool were ahead after some disastrous defending by the Gunners.

After that, Sadio Mane capitalised on some more poor marking for a third, before Mohamed Salah made it 4-1 with a penalty before half-time. After the break, Roberto Firmino completed his hat-trick with yet another penalty, before Arsenal were denied a clear spot-kick of their own by Michael Oliver.

It wouldn’t have made any difference though, as Unai Emery’s side were dreadful for the most part, and they deserved to lose. Let’s have a look at our player ratings for the fixture.

1Goalkeeper and Defence

Bernd Leno 4

You have to feel bad for Leno. What could he do about the deflection off Mustafi, Firmino’s perfectly placed second, or Salah and Mane combining in a two-on-one against him? The other two goals were penalties, so you could hardly blame him for those either.

The goalkeeper still made five saves, but the best he could offer this match was damage limitation.

Stephan Lichtsteiner 2.5

Lichtsteiner kicked the ball into Mustafi to allow Liverpool to score an equaliser just three minutes after Arsenal took the lead, then paid no attention to the man he was supposed to be marking (Salah) for Liverpool’s third. The only positive is that he was the one defender on the team to make more than one tackle.

Shkodran Mustafi 2

Mustafi was Saturday’s half-time substitution, for good reason. He didn’t make any tackles or clearances as he helped Liverpool score four first-half goals. He clearly wasn’t ready for this one.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 2.5

As much as Salah invited the contact and went down easily for the penalty, Sokratis still shouldn’t have let him get goal-side of him, nor should he have stuck a leg in. The Greek defender also lost Mane for the third goal. He made one good recovery tackle on Mane in the second half. Otherwise, he was as bad as the rest defensively.

Sead Kolasinac 3

For the most part, Kolasinac wasn’t quite as poor as his defensive partners. He offered something in possession and wasn’t as directly at fault for the first-half goals. However, whilst the penalty he then conceded was soft, it was still brainless to shove a Liverpool player in the area at Anfield. There was no way he was going to get away with that one.

Click ‘Next’ for Midfield, Forwards and Substitutes

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