Match report – By the numbers – Player ratings – Video
A disappointing night last night as we went down 2-0 to Bayern Munich, but one made more so by the feeling that this was a game in which we shot ourselves in the foot a bit. On top of that what promised to be a cracking European encounter was ruined by a rule which really, really needs to be looked at by football’s authorities.
I think it’s one of those games that you can look back on via key moments, so I think that’s what we’ll do. Starting with:
Ozil’s penalty
Despite Szczesny making a quite brilliant third minute save from Kroos, Arsenal started really well and created chances in the Bayern area. Yaya Sanogo saw a shot very well saved by Manuel Neuer, but when when Wilshere sent Ozil into the box and he cut back inside Boateng, the referee had little choice but to point to the spot.
You could also ask why, especially in light of what was to come, if Ozil gets away from Boateng and is one on one with the keeper why the card was just yellow as he’d denied a clear goalscoring opportunity?
Ozil stepped up to take it, did the same kind of stuttering run up the last time he took a penalty, and the outcome was the same: a miss. Neuer will be the Bayern hero, but it’s a penalty miss. After that, the atmosphere took a hit, Arsenal’s confidence with it, and Bayern grew more into the game.
There’s more on Ozil to come but there’s little I can say about his penalty technique other than it’s a bit rubbish. Arsene Wenger said afterwards:
I prefer people who run properly at the ball. But people have their own style, he feels comfortable like that.
It looks great when it comes off. Cool as anything, but when it doesn’t you leave yourself open to accusations of being casual. The other thing is that it’s simply more difficult for a keeper to save a penalty when it’s hit with real power. Even if they go the right way they’re often beaten just because of the pace of the ball, and I think Ozil’s position in the penalty taking pecking order needs to be re-thought.
Szczesny’s red card
Arsene Wenger accused Arjen Robben of making the most of the contact, which he most certainly did because that’s what Arjen Robben does. There’s no doubt he was caught by Szczesny, but he jumped up in the air – in the wrong direction from the way the contact would have sent him – and he stayed down as if he’d been poleaxed. The referee’s decision? He thought: last man, clear goalscoring opportunity = red card and a penalty.
For me, however, it’s a ridiculous rule and the punishment – for any team – is too harsh. Leaving aside the fact Robben pushed the ball away from goal and might not have got there, Szczesny didn’t deliberately foul him, he tried to make a save. And of course he’s the last man, he’s the goalkeeper, and shouldn’t he be entitled to do that?
If Robben had been hacked down from behind by Koscielny or pulled back to Mertesacker as he was shaping to shoot, then fair enough. That’s a good case for a red card, but punishing a goalkeeper for trying to make a save by sending him off then presenting the opposition with another clear cut goalscoring chance is too heavy a punishment and it ruined what should have been a fantastic game of football.
It wasn’t dangerous play, as some people would try and have you believe, but by the letter of the law the referee’s decision was correct. However, that doesn’t mean that particular law isn’t stupid and it’s something that the game’s authorities should really consider changing. And I say this for the benefit of the game itself, not just because it affected us last night. Even Bayern’s keeper said afterwards:
I know about the rules but this should not be a red card for the keeper. Arsenal was punished enough with the penalty.
In studio, Michael Ballack (hardly Arsenal biased) disagreed with the cretinous axis of Jamie, and said the same thing. The punishment does not fit the crime. Szczesny didn’t deliberately, professionally prevent the goalscoring chance; he was a keeper left exposed by his defence trying to make a last-ditch save and that he got it slightly wrong should mean the referee has the option to keep him on the pitch.
Bayern’s second goal
The first was a fantastic strike as Guardiola’s team dominated an insufferably boring second half. They passed it to the right hand side, they passed it to the left hand side. They passed it to the right hand side, they passed it to the left hand side. They passed it to the left hand side, they passed it to the right hand side. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pazzzzzzzzzzzzz. And Arsenal diligently shuffled across and did their best to keep out the best passing team in Europe.
We might have closed down Kroos a little earlier for their opener, but take nothing away from his finish which was brilliant. The kind of goal Man Utd fans will wish he’d score for them next season but he won’t. Yet despite riding our luck a little a bit, we’d got to the 87th minute with the scoreline at 0-1. With a free kick in midfield, here’s a pop quiz. Do you:
a) Make sure everyone’s in position, keep your shape and stay organised as much as possible.
or
b) Send one of your centre-halves forward, lose the ball then get caught on the counter and caught out when the midfielder filling it at centre-half isn’t as good there as an actual centre-half?
The fact that we plumped for b is, for me anyway, the most frustrating thing about last night. I love Koscielny, and he defended with all his might last night, but that was a stupid thing for him to do, especially when we’ve got a 6’4 centre-forward up front we could pump the ball towards.
It was exactly the kind of thing Arsene Wenger warned about pre-game, getting punished for recklessness when we should have just dug in and tried to keep the score to 1-0. I’ve no doubt Muller wouldn’t have had that space if we’d been better organised, and I wonder why the more experienced heads in the team didn’t try and call him back.
There was no point in throwing men forward at that stage, the risk was just too high against a Bayern team that had been looking for that kind of opportunity all night long. We handed it to them on a plate, and that was so disappointing. Why we couldn’t even have play it short and tried to keep the ball for 30 seconds is another question instead of just lumping it right back to them, but decision making sometimes isn’t the best when you’ve tried that hard and are that tired.
It was goal we could have avoided though, and one which makes what would have been a difficult job in Bayern even more so when we go there for the return leg.
Criticism of Ozil
The German seemed to cop plenty of flack afterwards and if you want to criticise his penalty, then that’s not something I’m willing to argue about. I’ve touched on it above, I think his technique is poor and somebody else should be taking them from now on.
I’ll also say – and have done for a while – that he’s not playing anywhere near as he can. Yet the accusations of laziness don’t work when you look at the distances run last night. He put in the yards, so if your criticism is that one of the best attacking midfielders in the world isn’t really that good when asked to play as an auxiliary left-back then it rather misses the point for me.
So he’s not good at tackling and isn’t as defensively switched on as you would like? Well, that’s not really his game, is it? Ask any forward to play that deep, against a team as good as Bayern, and they’re going to struggle. Even with 11 men, Santi and Gibbs found it hard going on our left hand side. A man down, trying to pull off a backs to the wall defensive effort, sitting deeper and deeper, barely getting out of our final third, and you’re using that to slag him off? Give me a break.
I know the penalty miss skews opinion, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. There was nobody who thought anything different other than we’ve signed one of the best players in Europe back in September, now there are countless experts out there will quite literally tell you he’s ‘shit’.
To me he looks tired, having played 90 minutes against United and Liverpool in the last week, and he was forced into an unnatural area of the pitch last night. The manager couldn’t take him off because Oxlade-Chamberlain was carrying an injury throughout the second half. Of course it didn’t suit him, but that there’s no willingness to try and understand that is exasperating sometimes.
Conclusion
Regrets, regrets. I’d have to love to have seen how this played out with 11 v 11. I thought we were great, really having a go at the best team in Europe and that ought not to be forgotten. Instead I ended up bored out of my shit because of the way the second half played. Their second goal was stupid, self-destructive and utterly avoidable, and it felt a bit cruel considering how late it came.
But what can we do only go there and try to do what we did last season? To those who say we should write it off, I couldn’t disagree more. We go there with our best team possible and try and get the best result possible. Who knows, maybe Bayern will fall foul of the game’s most stupid rule. You can’t just give up because something’s a bit difficult.
The challenge now is to get legs rested and heads lifted before Sunderland on Saturday. It’s been a difficult run of games, we have to make sure we don’t fall into the trap of underestimating less glamorous opposition. I expect changes, more on that in the next couple of days.
Back tomorrow with an Arsecast and all that entails. For now, have a good one.
