Liverpool produced a devastating display of attacking football to claim a comprehensive 4-0 win over a ragged Arsenal side in the Premier League.
Goals from Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane in a dominant first-half display set up victory before Mohamed Salah and substitute Daniel Sturridge completed the Anfield rout.
The Gunners were swept aside with embarrassing ease and, were it not for several good saves from Petr Cech, their defeat could have been even more humiliating.
Liverpool are now 4/5 in Sky Bet's Premier League top-four finish odds. That's the shortest price that the Reds have been in those odds all season.
Arsenal are out to 7/4 from 6/5 to end up in the Champions League qualification places.
Liverpool have been cut from 14/1 to 11/1 to win the title. Arsenal have been pushed out from 16/1 to 28/1 for the title.
After overcoming injury, Alexis Sanchez featured for Arsenal for the first time this season but the Chilean made little impact and speculation over his future may again increase ahead of Thursday's transfer deadline.
Sanchez had been restored to the side at the expense of Alexandre Lacazette and Arsene Wenger's decision to bench his record signing is likely to be questioned.
Opposite number Jurgen Klopp had made an equally surprising call by deciding to rest first-choice goalkeeper Simon Mignolet and bring in Loris Karius, but that was fully vindicated.
Karius was the quietest player on the pitch as Liverpool produced a performance close to perfection. Klopp's men were full of energy and relentless in their attacking ambition while Arsenal were were sloppy and ponderous.
The forward trio of Mane, Firmino and Salah never seemed to give the defence a moment's respite with the central midfielders and wing-backs driving them forward at every opportunity.
Story of the odds
There were some big-price winners for Sky Bet punters thanks to Liverpool's convincing victory.
- Liverpool to win 4-0 could be backed at 50/1
- Roberto Firmino & Sadio Mane to score, Liverpool to win and Joe Gomez & Granit Xhaka to be carded was also a 50/1 winner
- Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane all to score came in at 18/1
Post-match reaction
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger described his side's performance in the 4-0 loss at Liverpool as "not acceptable" and admitted they had been an "easy opponent" for the Reds.
Asked afterwards about what had gone wrong for his side, Wenger said: "Everything.
"I think from the first to the last minute we were not at the level requested for such a game - not physically, not technically, not mentally were we at the level, and we were punished.
"That's basically it. You can analyse the chances we gave away. But I just think overall the performance was not at the requested level."
Arsenal's previous two Premier League matches this season had seen them beat Leicester 4-3 at home, then lose 1-0 at Stoke.
Wenger added: "I believe in our first two games we looked quite good - our performances were good.
"But today the performance was not acceptable at that level. It is true that today we were an easy opponent for Liverpool."
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp felt his side's performance was perfect.
Klopp was especially pleased with the intensity his players produced just four days after their emotionally-draining Champions League play-off win over Hoffenheim.
He said: "We played an outstanding game against Hoffenheim and today we did the next step.
"We need to learn we can do things like this every three or four days, otherwise we will have a problem. We wanted to show it today and be spot on from the first second.
"We wanted to show our desire, our greed, our ambitions against a very strong side. We didn't think about winning the game - we thought about the performance. The performance was perfect and the result is the result of the performance."
