Arsenal Were Mugged Off & Humiliated

Match Review: Arsenal 1 Monaco 3 - Champions League 25.02.15

What can you say about Wednesday’s catastrophe? It’s difficult to describe exactly how terrible it was and I don’t think anybody saw it coming. As someone rightly pointed out to me, everyone expected Arsenal to win comfortably and set things up nicely for the second leg, but we’ve been mugged off and been made to look like fools. As I woke up today, the anger had gone and been replaced by crushing disappointment, a brutal realisation that we are nowhere near as good as we think we are. I actually had a tiny, foolish hope that we could win this competition, but Arsenal have duly put me firmly back in my box.

The team was as everyone expected, bar Gibbs replacing Monreal. Bellerin coming in for Chambers was the only other change and we actually started quite well. The first ten minutes saw us pushing forward promisingly and a few close calls. But eventually we slowed down and Monaco settled down into a very impressive defensive shape. The game fell into a bit of a stalemate, as we seemed very short of ideas.

Then, out of nothing, Monaco scored. It was a seemingly innocuous foray forward from the French side, but suddenly Kondogbia decided to take on a shot from thirty yards. Mertesacker produced a pathetic attempt to block the ball and the deflection off him wrong footed Ospina, as the ball flashed into the centre of the goal. For me, Cazorla was too complacent in letting Kondogbia shoot and as for Mertesacker, I was pretty incredulous. For all his wonderful qualities, he has these moments where he morphs from a tall, imposing centre back, into a frightened school girl, turning away from the ball and flinching. Despite the deflection, I was disappointed in Ospina too. He gave up as soon as the deflection happened, when really he had time to adjust. The ball ended flying past where his head would have been, had he been stood up straight, which means I think he should have been able to save it.

The goal stunned everyone. Not only had we been playing terrible football for most of the half, but now we’d conceded an away goal too. Although clearly not an irretrievable situation, it was a worrying start to the tie. You’d have expected that the goal would have focussed the Arsenal players and driven home to them that this was not a game we could just stroll through. I certainly thought we’d see a reaction from the team in the second half, but Arsenal love to surprise us.

I thought we’d turned a corner in the City game. The way we defended as a team and everyone knew their role suggested that we might finally see an Arsenal side capable of performing on the big stage. So to see Dimitar Berbatov smashing in the second goal after we’d committed all but one player (Koscielny) into their half was a tad disappointing. Mertesacker was at fault again, careering into an unsuccessful target and leaving us with one defender against two attackers. It was almost laughable how three desperate defenders came running back to all slide, almost in unison, in front of Berbatov as he despatched the chance.

Once the second goal went in, we went to pieces. We lost our shape and started panicking, forcing the play and making basic errors. Wenger said that at half time he’d urged the team to be patient and not rush the play. Their second goal meant that we were in deep trouble in the tie. It’s not like we hadn't created chances, but unfortunately the Olivier Giroud who had been terrorising teams for the last couple of months had disappeared and been replaced by something more akin to Bendtner. He had two great headed chances that he fluffed in a big way and then incredibly, he managed to miss from five yards out after Sanchez had forced the keeper into a save. He was unsurprisingly hooked, along with Coquelin in favour of Walcott and Chamberlain.

Wenger had to run the risk of getting counter attacked and with minutes left in the game, the gamble seemed to have paid off. Chamberlain, who was actually playing rather terribly, picked up the ball on the edge of the area and curled a glorious shot into the top corner to supposedly give us some hope for the second leg. A 2-0 or even 2-1 win would be difficult, but surely attainable in Monaco. But as is the Arsenal way, things couldn’t even be that simple.

We pushed forward to try and get an equaliser and Chamberlain, who had just given us hope, lost the ball in midfield. Not only that, but he then let Carrasco run off him and latch on to the through ball. The Monaco forward fired in off the post and eliminated us from the tie. Chamberlain was somehow completely rinsed for pace and Mertesacker allowed Carrasco time and space to pick his spot. I also think a large portion of blame has to go to Ospina too, who got a hand to the ball, but didn’t stop it. His dive was very poor and also late. Initially he’d positioned himself very well and covered off the angle to the far corner, but he was caught on his heels and the hand he did get to it was weak.

Not one player could claim to have had a good game. The performance was as bad as the City one was brilliant and there will surely have to be huge questions asked. We’ve blown a huge opportunity to get into the latter stages of the competition we have such an obsession with qualifying for. We’re brilliant at qualifying for the competition and getting through the group, but we simply bottle it when it comes to the knockout rounds. We underestimated Monaco and they humiliated us. We were naive, we were disorganised and we deserved what we got. Now all we have left is a fight for the right to do this all again next season and a very difficult FA Cup quarter final. After that performance, we’ll be lucky to leave Old Trafford without being humiliated. Wednesday night was the time to step up, but for the umpteenth time we’ve been found wanting.

Teams

Arsenal (4-2-3-1)
Ospina, Bellerin (Y), Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin (Y) (Chamberlain 68’), Cazorla (Rosicky 81’), Alexis, Özil (Y), Welbeck, Giroud (Walcott 60’)
Subs
Szczesny, Chambers, Monreal, Gabriel, Walcott, Chamberlain, Rosicky

Monaco (4-5-1)
Subasic, Toure, Wallace, Abdennour, Elderson (Y), Kondogbia, Moutinho (Y), Fabinho, Dirar (Kurzawa 82’), Martial (Silva 84’), Berbatov (Carrasco 75’)
Subs
Kurzawa, Carvalho, Silva, Stekelenburg, Carrasco, Traoré, Diallo

Player Ratings

Ospina - 2/10 - Made one good save, but culpable for the first and third goals
Bellerin - 3/10 - Overwhelmed by the speedy Martial and caught out of position a lot
Mertesacker - 2/10 - Went full Kompany. Never go full Kompany.
Koscielny - 4/10 - Vaguely respectable, maybe just not as bad as the others
Gibbs - 2/10 - Not sure why he was brought back, but he had a nightmare against Dirar
Coquelin - 4/10 - Like Koscielny, more a victim of the rest of the team having a meltdown
Cazorla - 3/10 - After so many good performances at CM he looked completely lost
Alexis - 3/10 - Looks mentally fatigued and just tried too hard to force things
Özil - 3/10 - Not helped by our lack of movement, but was sloppy with his passing
Welbeck - 3/10 - Did ok on the right, but was anonymous through the middle
Giroud - 1/10 - No comment. I just hope the damage to his confidence isn’t irreparable
Subs
Walcott - 3/10 - Didn’t make much difference, had one half chance
Chamberlain - 2/10 - Threatened to save us and then condemned us in the space of 2 minutes
Rosicky - N/A

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