Suits you, Sir? Arsene finally rids himself of his unlucky sleeping bag
Bayern Munich 0 – 2 Arsenal
Agg: 3 – 3; Bayern win on away goals rule
0 – 1 Giroud (3)
0 – 2 Koscielny (85)
Arsenal came within a whisker of achieving the result they required to progress to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. As with twelve months earlier, the performance in the second leg was a complete contrast to the first; everything missing then was shown in abundance last night and the squad deserves credit for the recovery, the manner of play and individual performances. Continuing that will stand them in good stead for the rest of the season and ought to be the springboard for a run that puts pressure on those above them in domestic competition.
The goals were book ends of the match, inbetween the perfect start from Giroud and the finely placed header of Koscielny, Arsenal relied on their defence and were indebted to the returning Lukasz Fabianski for a clean sheet. Even when Bayern went close, you sensed that the Pole had it covered. Last night, a vocal organiser of the defence, his handling was assured; totally at odds with the last time he was seen in an Arsenal shirt, his demeanour reflected a man shorn of confidence. Not enough to change the manager’s mind about who his first choice goalkeeper is but drawing praise from Arsène nonetheless.
If they were going to achieve the impossible, an early goal was crucial; this time, Arsenal obeyed their manager’s plan to the letter. Aaron Ramsey drove into the Bayern half, enticing an equisite first time pass from Tomas Rosicky to Theo Walcott on the right whose growing maturity as a forward was reflected in the sharp, low cross to the far post where Olivier Giroud was lurking. The attack was everything good about Arsenal’s game; running at the opposition, precise passing and purposeful attacking. Any combination of these things has been missing on a regular basis this season.
Calm heads in defence were required to induce nervousness in Bayern. The Bundesliga leaders responded, Kroos carbon copy effort of his goal in the first leg was confidently dealt with by Fabianski, the Pole anticipating what was to follow as soon as the German midfielder received the pass. Bayern pressed forward, Robben flashed a shot wide, Muller slashed a shot into the side-netting; a sign of embarrassment at missing or acknowledgement that Fabianski was proving a hurdle too high in claiming of a corner? Arsenal were absorbing pressure, waiting for the break to come. It nearly arrived as Walcott – subdued through lack of possession and tracking back – tried to find Giroud once more but this time the chance eluded Arsenal.
The interval arrived with half the job done, the words of George Graham echoed down the years from the balmy night at Anfield. The clean sheet at half-time requiring two second half goals to finish the job.
Bayern emerged strongly at the start of the second half, Robben shot deflected wide, Kroos went closer, Gustavo the same. Despite some heart in the mouth defending and casually ceded possession, Arsenal remained in the tie and Fabianski with relatively few saves to make. And when he was needed, the Pole stood firm to deny Robben. As much as he needed confidence for himself, Fabianski was giving the appearance of being confident as much a weapon in the goalkeeper’s arsenal as the real thing.
As time passed, Arsenal needed a goal of their own to exert more pressure as their hosts resorted to blatant timewasting in an attempt to see the tie out. That moment arrived; Cazorla slipped the ball to Gervinho, the Ivorian producing a sublime dragback to find space but in beating the advancing Neuer, guided the ball agonisingly wide of the goal. A Mickey Thomas moment after 75 minutes or so on that Anfield night.
To keep Arsenal on their toes, Muller spurned a final opportunity for Bayern to kill the tie but with hope heading toward the exit, Santi Cazorla curled his corner to meet Laurent Koscielny’s perfectly timed run, the ball arrowing into the bottom corner beyond Neuer’s despairing dive. With just shy of ten minutes to go, Bayern went into timewasting overdrive beginning with the scamble in the back of the net, yellow cards lighting the Bavarian sky from the nervous Czech referee.
There was much to be proud of in terms of the performance. Elements which had been missing during various parts of the season appeared en masse last night. Key to it was the spirit emphasized by the manager post-match. He noted that the back four would be reshuffled for Saturday but surely not the central pairing which has been Arsenal’s best combination this season. The Keystone Cops moments are still there but Franco-German axis seems more solid than when you put the Belgian in place of one. Is the burden of captaincy weighing too heavy on Thomas Vermaelen?
The fight displayed, the harrying and pressing has been missed previously. Sitting deeper suits the back four but also affords the pacey forward line and quick thinking midfield more space to work in on the counter. Is this the template for the future, reverting back to the manner of play at the start of the season away from home? Whatever happens going forward, all that was asked of the Arsenal players last night was for a performance which restored pride. They very nearly achieved more than that; maybe Arsène needs to build an imaginary wall for the players to put at their backs for the rest of the season. They responded to the low expectations with a performance that stands as a marked contrast to a lot of this season.
’til Tomorrow.
4-4
are you saying they are not?
im staggered your the only one who thinks that..
as for sagna..yeah hes our best defender in a deep like like last night he’d be awesome but jenks will be ready to take over soon..
i dont think tv’s in the team because of the armband i know he is but hes not the best captain nor is he the best defender but we dont want to admit we are wrong do we..
So which games has the combination of Kosc and Per been brilliant in ?
If it is all about last night Jack is out of a job
youve been spending too much time with hunter. thats the only explanation i got..
koz is our best defender..and bfg is our most composed we went thru all this debate when tv was given the armband
as for jack..hes our best midfielder..but hes injured now because weve overplayed him..again..
Poor logic anyway as our midfield and attack weren’t all that great last night but our defence was.
Manchester City (a)
Highlight of the trip to Eastlands was the outstanding performance of Aaron out on the wing I thought
Vague recollection of our centre backs getting mugged by Lescott for an easy header in the first half
My memory maybe
Kosc is very lucky ever to play professional football again after his first half in the Capital One in Reading
Or his second half in the shambles at SJP when we battled back to throw away the 4-0 lead
Get a bleeding grip – he had a good game
Another dozen good games he can write his own name on the team sheet
Til then much hard graft required
‘Overplayed’
I had to larf
Jack needs to get himself fit enough, and keep himself fit enough, to play professional football at the highest level
If he does not know how to do it ask Santi, or Mikel, or Aaron – my God even Theo appears to be managing to stay fit enough to turn out regularly
And if he hears something useful mention it to Gibbs
to be honest its pointless turning this into some hoo haa about the players..
i got bored of that ages ago..
its upto the manager to get the best out of them and we look better when we aint set up to let teams run through us..
we looked better at the start of the season we looked better last night
it wasnt pretty football it was mid nineties scrappy arsenal and we fucked bayern with it so what we gonna do?
its not the fans, its not the players, its the managers set up and its been found wanting all season because they cant do it no matter how much he want them to be xavi and messi they aint..
now he either sticks with this now and gives us a chance of catching spurs or he does it his own way of 70% possession 3 shots out of 30 on target with zero defence and pay the price
once we get to the summer he can add the quality hes sold to play wengerball again..until then play to these players strengths and do whats needed to be done..
even if its scrappy..
he wants them to fight
so let them..
we want spurs and theres ten teams in the way so smash through them
funnily enough
it was wenger who said jack had played too much..
Did he ?
I wonder what he meant
If Jack is ‘overplayed’ god knows what Santi is
It may be an English thing in Arsene’s mind – English players are not up to a full professional season – Theo performing wonders not far front
Interesting
And why didn’t Zhirkov see a red card there?
Newcastle score in injury time
and it is literally the last kick of the game
Can teams from the same country play against each other now? 3 of the last 8 are English.
Going back to an earlier discussion on contracts, but I’m sure I read somewhere in the run-up to last night’s match that Bayern had approached Wenger when he had one year left on his Monaco contract. Arsene went to the Monaco board, but they were not willing to let him go so he saw out his contract. I wonder if he has ever had that discussion with the Arsenal board.
The headline sums it up YW.
Good to see a ‘smart’ win.
We didn’t dominate possession, we didn’t create many chances.
But we took those we had, and we didn’t allow much at the other end.
Why Wenger still insists on waiting for his 70 minute subs when we are chasing 2 goals is beyond me.
And why bother the pretence of taking Ashavin on road trips. I thought after TR7 picked up his yellow, and considering the number of wayward passes he had made, giving AA a crack would have been worth the risk.
Other than that, the team should take confidence into Swansea game and a win there would instill positive vibes through the team
Good news on SAMSON.
THANKS. CG
Jack is the most fouled player in the league. He is just returning from a very long injury layoff. I certainly thought he might only play 25 games for Arsenal this season as he transitions back. It was always a risk that he could be overplayed particularly as we didn’t replace Song, Diaby and Rosicky haven’t been available somewhat predictably, and we haven’t relied on Coquelin, instead moving Arteta over. AW hasn’t really been able to protect him given our battle this whole season to get into 4th. It’s not a mystery that he is suffering from being overplayed and those have been hard minutes getting kicked. Need a strong physical player alongside him and to rotate him and Arteta next season, I think. Arteta isn’t getting younger.
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You’re a man of few words maceo. I, on the other hand, have plenty to say. Just as well really otherwise today’s post would be really short
http://www.aclfarsenal.co.uk/?p=10820