(BBC) – Arsenal flagged up the early heavyweight confrontation with Premier League champions Liverpool at Anfield with the social media message: “Make a statement.”
The game was billed as a meeting between the club that wears the crown and the pretenders whose recent attempts to win the title have ended in the bitter disappointment of falling short.
After Dominik Szoboszlai’s brilliant 83rd-minute free-kick gave Liverpool victory, it is tough to escape the suspicion that the cloak of caution Arteta draped over Arsenal makes this a significant missed opportunity to secure a landmark – albeit very rare – Anfield victory.
Arsenal, on this ultra-conservative evidence, failed to read the pre-match memo.
No-one expects manager Arteta to order his players to throw the kitchen sink at Liverpool in their Anfield fortress, but this was a Gunners’ display that seemed designed to get a point but ended with nothing.
Arteta has been handed the weapons to cure that shortfall as the biggest net spenders of the transfer window so far, with deals totalling £248m.
Chief among them was, finally, the acquisition of a recognised striker in Viktor Gyokeres – signed from Portuguese giants Sporting for £64m – then, most eye-catching of all, the coup that saw Arsenal snatch Eberechi Eze away from Tottenham Hotspur in a £60m move from Crystal Palace.
The pressure is on Arteta to finally end a barren era of five years without a trophy after that backing – and this means the big prizes of the Premier League or Champions League.
Arsenal ended up losing a dour, largely colourless, encounter – two teams showing each other huge respect until Szoboszlai curved a magnificent direct free-kick past David Raya from 30 yards.
They rarely troubled a Liverpool defence that has looked vulnerable even in victory in their first two league games against Bournemouth and Newcastle United.
In the end, it was Liverpool who made the big early title statement against Arsenal, the side expected to be their closest challengers, by making it a maximum nine from nine without reaching anywhere near the standards that saw them stroll to the Premier League last season.
Arsenal could not shift the storyline of misery that accompanies them in Liverpool as the hosts struck an early psychological blow.
The Gunners are winless in their past 13 Premier League games at Anfield, losing eight and drawing five, since a 2-0 win in September 2012. And that 2012 win is also their only clean sheet in their past 27 league visits to Anfield.
Arteta will understandably offer the mitigating circumstances of the injury that cost him Bukayo Saka, the shoulder injury that restricted captain Martin Odegaard to the bench, and the problem sustained by key defender William Saliba that saw him leave the action after only five minutes.
It is, of course, a nonsense to suggest the third Premier League game of the season is any sort of defining moment, but it is reasonable to say an Arsenal win would have underpinned all their aspirations this season and sent a surge of self-belief through Arteta’s team.