Liverpool Lay Down Premier League Marker in Arsenal Win

As goals from Sadio Mane, Andy Robertson and Diogo Jota saw off a stubborn Arsenal 3-1 at Anfield, Liverpool came from behind to retain a perfect beginning to their Premier League title defence.

The Gunners had also won their first two of the season's league games and reached the counter-attack champions to take the lead through Alexandre Lacazette, reports AFP.

But while in the first three weeks of the new campaign, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham and now Arsenal have all lost, Liverpool have taken maximum points to set an early marker that they remain the team to beat this season in the Premier League.

Had Mane not escaped with only a yellow card for an elbow on Kieran Tierney after just three minutes, the outcome of the match might have been very different.

Arsenal followed the game plan that in recent months had given them two victories over Liverpool as they sunk deep and then sought to play through the press of the Reds while in possession.

However, unlike when the men of Jurgen Klopp had already won the league or the Community Shield in August when they met at the back end of last season's Premier League, Liverpool was much sharper in pulling the Gunners out of position.

Mane was the first to threaten Trent Alexander-Arnold 's cross with a clean strike that was too close to Bernd Leno before Alexander-Arnold 's deflected effort came back from the crossbar.

The last time Arsenal managed before half-time to pierce the Liverpool news, they opened the scoring entirely against the run of play.

Robertson was at fault as he spooned Ainsley Maitland-Niles 's cross into Lacazette 's route, who also failed to make a proper link, but the ball bounced into the ground and looped over the helpless Alisson Becker.

Within three minutes, Liverpool reacted instantly to level as Salah outmuscled Tierney and Mane turned into an empty net when his shot was parried across goal by Leno.

Robertson amended them for his previous mistake as the flying full-backs of Liverpool combined as the cross of Alexander-Arnold was converted by the captain of Scotland this time.

However, where Arsenal sides may have fallen in recent years, as they did in losing 4-0 and 5-1 in 2018 and 2019 at Anfield, Mikel Arteta has instilled a new-found trust in the winners of the FA Cup.

After the break, the visitors were more expansive and created an enormous opportunity to level when Dani Ceballos put Lacazette through on target, but Alisson stood up well to block the shot of the French striker.

Klopp introduced Jota 10 minutes from time for his league debut and when he fired into the side-netting from Salah's excellent through pass, the Portuguese international should have sealed the victory.

Moments later, the Egyptian was less forgiving, taking the ball from Jota 's toes and struggling to defeat Leno.

But as a sweetly-struck volley found the bottom corner to prove why the Reds paid £ 41 million ($52 million) to sign him from Wolves, Jota did not have to wait long for his first Liverpool goal.