Ian Wright praises Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Alex Iwobi after Liverpool thumping
Ian Wright picked out Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Alex Iwobi for praise in the aftermath of Arsenals 5-1 thrashing away to Liverpool.
Maitland-Niles got Arsenal off to the perfect start, slotting home Iwobis pinpoint cross to break the deadlock, but it was a false dawn for the Gunners and Jurgen Klopps men soon equalised through Roberto Firmino.
The Brazilian went on to complete a hat-trick, with Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah also getting on the scoresheet at Anfield, and Unai Emerys side missed their chance to sneak into the Premier League top four.
While Wright concedes that the sides defensive frailties were exposed on Merseyside, the former Arsenal striker believes Maitland-Niles and Iwobi deserve some credit for their promising performances.
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Im obviously disappointed with the result but I dont think any Arsenal fan is naive enough to think were not going into the game as underdogs, Wright said on his official YouTube channel.
Liverpool, with the way theyre playing at the moment and the focus on them, are always going to be tough especially with our defensive frailties and they showed up today.
You have to try to take positives. I didnt think that we capitulated like Ive seen us do in the past. The manager has got some form of system and steeliness in place.
[Ainsley] Maitland-Niles and [Alex] Iwobi did very well. Im just trying to find positives but theres a lot of work to be done.
Wright believes the hype surrounding Arsenals 22-match unbeaten streak may have masked some obvious weaknesses in Emerys team.
Maybe we got a little bit carried away with the unbeaten run. A lot of those games were poor performances in wins and draws, he added.
I would like to have seen like we have with Liverpool – hammering teams, building momentum as theyre doing.
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The front three have slowly started to get going and they kicked in today for sure. Theyve been getting results to a point where theyre starting to fly now and weve got a lot of work to do to catch them up.
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The manager needs a couple of windows and theres still the [Mesut] Ozil situation as well.
MORE: Unai Emery targets three new signings for Arsenal in January transfer window
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