And Sunderland manager David Moyes believes Arsene Wenger may have made his job that much harder with comments about players being “on the beach” more likely to fire Sunday’s opponents Everton up to beat them.
“I think that’s an insult to footballers,” he said.
“I’ve been a player myself and I would hate anybody questioning me and saying I wasn’t going to be playing and was going to chuck it. That would probably get my goat up more than anything.
“The Premier League teams have got too much pride, the players have got too much pride. I think when you are brought up in this country you are brought up to show that every game matters.
“The Sunderland players did not play well on Sunday, we know that, the players know that. It did not look good enough. It wasn’t good enough. But I think you would say today that Sunderland gave it a go, tried to score at times, but were outclassed in the end by a better football team than we were.”
Liverpool need to match the Arsenal result against Middlesbrough to book their own place in the top four and leave Wenger requiring a mathematical miracle to catch Manchester City, who are still not technically safe.
But Wenger praised injured star Sanchez for at least keeping them in the hunt.
“I felt he had something still left,” Wenger said.
“But once he is on the pitch and has the ball he becomes the devil and forgets his pain.
“Nobody questions his desire and his quality but it shows as well – if you look at his numbers, he has developed here as a player. He has become a top-class player. He has not wasted his time here. Hopefully that will last for a long time.”
How long Wenger himself will last was again an issue after a fans’ protest appeared to be behind vast swathes of empty seats at the Emirates with a healthy attendance figure of 59,510 tallying tickets sold and taking no account of the no-shows.
Wenger, though, was unconcerned. “It’s Tuesday night against Sunderland, who everyone expects us to beat,” he said.
“When you play football, you do not count how many people are sitting in the stand.”
