3 weeks ago
9
It wasn't particularly attractive soccer.
However, Liverpool maintained its perfect start to defending its Premier League crown with a victory against its closest challenger, Arsenal, on Sunday. Dominik Szoboszlai netted the decisive goal with a thunderous 30-yard free-kick seven minutes before the final whistle, extending the Reds' lead to two points after three matches of the new season.
It provided a pleasing conclusion at Anfield. Here's how England's national press assessed another crucial result for Arne Slot's team. Oliver Holt in the Daily Mail suggests the pending acquisition of Alexander Isak from Newcastle will render Liverpool an even more formidable proposition.
"Forget the idea that the recruitment of Isak might destabilise them," he wrote. "Isak is too good a player and Slot too good a manager for that to be an issue.
"If Isak signs for Liverpool on Monday, the rest of the league should be afraid.
"If he doesn't sign, they will know that Slot's team should be good enough to hold off the rest anyway."
Richard Jolly from The Independent was among many who noted Arsenal's cautious approach. "Set-piece FC were condemned to defeat by a wonderful set-piece, Szoboszlai's free-kick leaving David Raya shrugging as he picked himself up off the Anfield turf," he wrote. "Well, what could he do?
"That might be Arsenal's sense, too. They imposed themselves upon Anfield, their style of play, even their scoreline.
"Except this was 1-0 to Liverpool. The champions scored in the brief period of time when they were the superior side.
"For at least an hour, Arsenal were the more assertive, the more coherent, the more convincing. But perhaps not the more creative. Sterile domination, Arsene Wenger once called it, albeit about more technical, less physical sides.
"Every other opponent had scored twice against Liverpool this season. Arsenal only mustered one shot on target."
James Gheerbrant, writing for The Times, examined the impact of man-of-the-match Szoboszlai.
"You can take the man out of the engine room, but you can't take the engine out of the man," he wrote. "In a game which was at times, slow, torpid, attritional, Dominik Szoboszlai was the motor which kept on running.
"Just when it seemed that this meeting of the defending champions and formidable challengers was petering out towards a mutually-assured stalemate, Liverpool's unstoppable force delivered an unstoppable free kick, whipped beyond the despairing dive of David Raya, kissing the inside of the post, and providing Arne Slot's team with their third late-snatched win in their first three games of this season."
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