Arsenal boss watched on as former-club Monaco defeated his team 3-1 in the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie
When Arsenal were drawn against French Ligue One outfit Monaco in the Champions League last-16 most Gunners fans rejoiced.
It felt like their team had been handed a very favourable draw considering the possible available opponents.
However, after last night’s 3-1 first leg defeat against the French side at the Emirates, I doubt many Gunners fans are in the mood for rejoicing.
Monaco
English media and fans have a habit of underestimating foreign teams at times.
However, looking at Monaco there were very few signs that the side from the principality would come to the Emirates and produce such a vibrant display.
The Monaco defence is now notoriously well-organised and breaking past that backline was always going to be difficult for the Gunners. The Ligue One outfit had kept five clean sheets in their six group games, which was should have been a big pointer to their strengths.
However, it was their attacking play that was surprising. They hit the Gunners on the counter-attack on a number of occasions, with all three goals coming extensively from counter-attacks.
The likes of Joao Moutinho and Geoffrey Kondogbia were outstanding in midfield, with forwards Anthony Martial and Dimitar Berbatov also playing a big part in their superb away day.
Complacency
Monaco may have been regarded as one of the weaker sides remaining in the competition, but they still topped their group. It seemed like the Arsenal players thought they had already made it into the last eight of the competition before a ball had even been kicked against the French side.
Arsenal have enough quality in their squad to win games like these, but big players simply did not turn up against Monaco and as Dimitar Berbatov stated the visitors simply wanted the win more than the Gunners.
Awful
Arsenal is in danger of becoming flat-track bullies. In recent seasons the Gunners victories in big games have been few and far between and their star players often go missing. This game was one of those games.
French striker Olivier Giroud is a prime example of a player who seems to perform really well against poorer sides, but struggles against better opposition. Giroud has recently been praised by boss Arsene Wenger.
However, against Monaco it looked like he had borrowed the banjo used by Romelu Lukaku during Everton’s Sunday draw with Leicester. He had numerous chances to find the net against a usually stubborn Monaco defence, but fluffed his lines in front of goal.
Danny Welbeck started on the wing, but spent most of his time cutting inside attempting to pick the ball-up. As former-Manchester United defender Gary Neville stated he should be getting chalk on his boots and stay on the flank.
Arsenal fans are now seeing why Manchester United was so keen to sell the England international for £16million last summer. Despite his underperformance he is an Arsene Wenger favourite, so no doubt he will be blindly picked for the Gunners game against Everton on Sunday.
A player who seemed to disappear during the game was Germany international Mesut Ozil and not for the first time in a big game for Arsenal. To be fair to the former-Real Madrid ace he has been in very good form since his comeback from injury.
In this game he might as well not have been on the pitch, that is how much of an effect he had on the game. His attitude has been questioned in the past and it has to be questioned again in this match.
The other player in the line of fire for criticism is centre-back Per Mertesacker, who would lose a race against tortoise, he is that slow. The former-World Cup winner has never had much pace, but he has always made up for that in his positional sense.
That seems to go missing when he is up against decent opposition and he just does not seem to be able to cope with any clever movement. He was badly exposed last night by Monaco’s counter-attacks, especially for the second goal.
Difficult
When substitute Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pulled a goal back it looked like the Gunners had hope in the tie. However that hope was quickly extinguished in stoppage-time, as the youngster lost the ball in midfield and Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco ran from the half-way line and fired beyond David Ospina to make it 3-1.
Arsenal now have to score three goals without reply in the second leg, or win 3-1 to take the game into extra-time-time. That would be a major achievement considering that only Bordeaux have managed to score more than two goals past the team from the principality this season.
Arsenal have the attacking talents to achieve the difficult task on their day. However, the Gunners players will know that their poor performance in the first leg will probably have cost their team a place in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
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