Arsenal disappointed yet again in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday evening, losing 2-1 to Dinamo Zagreb, who came into the match as heavy underdogs. A red card to Olivier Giroud and two goals from the Croatian champions including an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain own goal within the first hour put Arsenal 2-0 down and with just a half hour to play, Theo Walcott pulled one back in the 79th minute, but it was too little too late for the Gunners.
With a rough start to the season, the Gunners will need to review their options yet again after scoring just five goals in five Premier League matches, and six in all competitions. Manager Arsene Wenger spoke in his post-match news conference and had some interesting things to say.
Speaking about the result, Wenger thought that Arsenal were unlucky.
It’s difficult because we had a lot of the ball and we had early chances. We were a bit unlucky tonight.
I believe the first goal was offside and then afterwards the sending off was very harsh. We have to look at ourselves as well because the second goal killed our game. We are good enough to defend corners like that well. Apart from that we had a lot of the ball when it was 10 against 11.
They were committed, they defended well and sometimes I felt that they stopped us from gaining an advantage without being punished by the referee, especially on counter-attacks where we had to play 10 against 11 in one half.
We were not at our best but neither was the referee tonight.
The Arsenal boss then went on to talk about the sending off of French striker Olivier Giroud.
The first yellow card was Giroud’s fault because he protested, even if there was no foul against him. After that he should have not protested to the referee.
His second yellow card was completely unlucky to touch the guy. I do not understand the referee.
He was then asked if Giroud should have been more careful when he committed the foul, but claimed that he thought there was no animosity in the foul.
I don’t think he saw the guy. It was completely accidental. It happened and I think at that moment it was not a second yellow.
It has to be a foul on purpose and it was not on purpose.
The referee should have given several yellows tonight based on that.
The loss on the road to Zagreb was a tough one, but Arsenal need to get back on track before they face Chelsea on the weekend and to get ready to qualify for the round of 16, which they can do easily providing they do not have many slip-ups like the one from the first matchday.
