City spoil Emery’s Arsenal bow
MANCHESTER City ruined the start of the Unai Emery era at Arsenal as the champions signalled their intent to retain the Premier League title with a stylish 2-0 win on Sunday.
Pep Guardiola’s side swept to the title last term with a record 100 points and they were quickly back in the groove at the Emirates Stadium.
Raheem Sterling opened the scoring with a clinical finish early in the first half and Bernardo Silva’s thunderous strike capped a City success that served as a resounding warning to their title rivals.
No team has successfully defended the English title since Manchester United in 2008-09.
But on the evidence of this composed display, City have every chance of emulating their rivals’ achievement.
Picking up where they left off last term, City had too much class for Arsenal and easily repelled the hosts’ few dangerous moments.
“We played at a high level. We created a lot of chances. We are satisfied for many reasons,” Guardiola said.
“In the first half we deserved to score two or three more.”
City’s excellence underlined the size of the task facing new Arsenal boss Emery as the Gunners begin life without Arsene Wenger.
Arsenal were playing a competitive match without Wenger in charge for the first time since September 1996.
Emery was hired to replace Wenger following the Frenchman’s exit at the end of a dismal campaign which saw Arsenal finish sixth in the Premier League – 37 points behind City.
The Spaniard will need time to make his mark on a moribund club and, while Arsenal couldn’t be faulted for effort against City, there was precious little quality about their play.
“We wanted to show our best performance, but the first half we didn’t play like we wanted. We spoke at half-time about taking more responsibility,” Emery said.
Guardiola started with Kevin De Bruyne and Leroy Sane on the bench as he recalled Sterling and gave a Pre- mier League debut to Algeria winger Riyad Mahrez, whose move from Leicester was Guardiola’s only major closeseason signing.
Liverpool live up to title hype
Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp warned much tougher challenges lie ahead of Liverpool’s quest to end a near threedecade wait to win the Premier League after brushing aside West Ham 4-0 at a jubilant Anfield on Sunday.
Mohamed Salah opened his account for the season, Sadio Mane scored twice and Daniel Sturridge added a late fourth in an impressive display by Klopp’s men as £65 million ($83 mil- lion) goalkeeper Alisson Becker kept a clean sheet on debut.
Liverpool haven’t been crowned champions of England since 1989/90 and finished 25 points behind City last season.
But after reaching the Champions League final in May and spending more than anyone else in the Premier League in the off-season, there is palpable belief that wait will come to an end in May.
“We know about our expectations and noticed the very positive atmosphere around us in the whole preseason,” said Klopp. “It’s good people are positive, but the season again will be unbelievably hard.”
Klopp has tried to keep a lid on expectations given the gap to City last season despite spending a reported £170 million.
“We cannot be anything different than the challenger because we have not won anything since I’ve been in [charge], a long time. We have to invest more, fight more,” he added.
There was little tinkering for Klopp to do up front after Salah, Mane and Roberto Firmino combined for 91 goals last season, and they again provided the firepower to outclass a sorry West Ham despite their own near £100 million outlay on nine new players.
In Sunday’s other match, former England first-choice keeper Joe Hart kept his second successive clean sheet for Burnley in an entertaining scoreless draw with Southampton.