Did Alexis Sanchez laugh after Liverpool opened the scoring against Arsenal?

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger had previously stated that star player Alexis Sanchez was dropped due to tactical reasons for the game against Liverpool on Saturday. “Without Sanchez, Arsenal just have good players”. Danny Welbeck pulled them within one in the 57th minute, but Liverpool would regain the two-goal lead thanks to a strike by Georginio Wijnaldum in stoppage time.

The loss marks a low point of Arsenal’s season, and perhaps one of the lows of manager Arsene Wenger’s career.

However, Wenger said he had chose to start Welbeck and Oliver Giroud instead to provide a more direct attacking threat. Finally, Arsenal became much more direct, forcing Simon Mignolet to flex his muscles on several occasions.

Fellow star Mesut Ozil missed the Liverpool game with an illness, and the German’s future is also in doubt as he is in the same contractual situation as Sanchez.

Emre Can and Ragnar Klavan started for the hosts but it was the visiting team’s change that made social media go into a frenzy as Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger perplexingly chose to bench talismanic winger Alexis Sanchez in favour of Olivier Giroud.

Sanchez’s contract situation gives the Chile worldwide the advantage, as he’ll be a free agent at the end of next season. “It’s disappointing when you lose the game, but more disappointing conceding the first two goals because we weren’t in danger”, he told reporters.

Liverpool are just a point behind Arsenal, who are now fourth in the standings and occupy the final Champions League spot. He cited the 1-0 victory over Manchester City on New Year’s Eve and the draw at Sunderland three days later.

The defeat was the Gunners’ third in four league games and saw them drop out of the top four.

This season’s vitriol towards the long-serving Wenger has been noticeably more spiked than usual – a failed title challenge and European humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich have seen calls for his departure grow ever-louder. “We did really well”. We had hard words after the defeat at Leicester (on Monday). We analysed it and that wasn’t enjoyable.

“For us, this kind of game like Liverpool is of course an opportunity that we want to take”.

“It was frustrating. We are kind of the roller coaster of the league – a lot of ups and, meanwhile, too many downs”.

“But against Leicester the first ball went five yards away from his foot and you thought ‘what’s that?!’ It started like this and couldn’t get any better”.

“No, we always make the analysis without knowing who is playing”. It’s not usual to come back like this. “We need to bounce back”.