Arsene Wenger bemoaned Arsenal’s defensive display but defiantly refused to give up on his side’s chances of making the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League on a forgetful night in Germany.
The Gunners were soundly beaten by a rampant Bayern Munich 5-1 – and to make matters worse Olympiacos scored late to beat Dinamo Zagreb.
It all means Arsenal’s qualification hopes are fading with a six point deficit to make up on the Greek’s but Wenger was left to rue slack defending on a disappointing night in the Allianz Arena.
You have to give credit to Bayern first for their quality and on top of that we made things quite easy for them.
It was a bad defensive performance and we were extremely poor defensively. We were not at the races.
The funny thing is that when we went forward we created good chances. We had a chance to score early but with a defensive performance like that, you go nowhere.
Robert Lewandowski, David Alaba, Arjen Robben and two goals from Thomas Muller did not flatter Bayern who were by far the better side.
But Arsenal may well come away with a sense of what might have been had they taken chances which were afforded to them. Mesut Ozil also had a goal disallowed for hand ball but in truth they can have no complaints.
Wenger and his team know what’s required and the Arsenal boss does not believe the task to be impossible – although slim.
It’s [the performance] certainly not going to remain in my memory for anything positive.
There is still a chance to qualify. Olympiacos have to lose here, we have to beat Zagreb and then we will see when we play Olympiacos away. It’s a small chance but it is a real one.
There was more bad news as Wenger revealed Hector Bellerin is a doubt for Tottenham on Sunday.
Wenger has called on players to respond against their local rivals.
We now have to focus on the Premier League on Sunday and bounce back with a different performance because we are in a good position in the league. It’s important that we realise what we did today and we know that.
