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Arsenal face tough opening
LONDON: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is grappling with a defensive injury crisis ahead of his team’s Premier League opener at home to Juergen Klopp’s buoyant Liverpool
LONDON: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is grappling with a defensive injury crisis ahead of his team’s Premier League opener at home to Juergen Klopp’s buoyant Liverpool on Sunday.
Wenger is set to be without his three senior centre-backs at the Emirates Stadium and in Liverpool faces a team who put four unanswered goals past Barcelona in a recent friendly.
With Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur all having strengthened in hope of toppling champions Leicester City, Wenger knows that it is not the time to be left in the starting blocks.
“There is anxiety because you want to do well and you know how important it is, and maybe this season more than ever it looks like every club has new ambition,” said the Frenchman.
“So it promises to be a very exciting one and a very difficult one as well. I believe it’s not necessarily what Liverpool wanted or what we wanted. Usually you would like four or five games before the big games turn up. But the fixtures are as they are and you have to deal with it. It’s the same problem for both teams.”
MOURINHO ON A MISSION AT UNITED
BOURNEMOUTH: Jose Mourinho has pledged to turn United’s underachieving stars into Premier League title contenders with a relentless diet of hard work.
Mourinho will take charge of his first league match as United manager on Sunday when his new team kick off their domestic campaign at Bournemouth.
“Professionalism, that’s for sure. We’re not here to have fun, not here to enjoy the sunny weather,” Mourinho said.
“We’re here to work, here to give everything for the club. That’s what we promise. The only thing that every Manchester United fan around the world can be sure of is that inside the training ground everybody works.”
