Where to begin?
The last month for Arsenal Football Club has been nothing short of a travesty.
Excluding Hull and Sutton, both of which were poor performances regardless, the rest of the games were Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Bayern Munich. Loss, loss, loss, loss, with four more poor performances overall.
Let’s start with the biggest talking point of the four games: Alexis Sanchez.
Left on the bench in what was billed as a “must-win” game against a Liverpool side in no kind of form. Arsene Wenger’s explanation was that he needed to be direct. If this was truly the case, why play Alex Iwobi? Why leave Theo Walcott on the bench? It seems to me that Wenger was making a point to Sanchez that he is not bigger than the team. This, predictably, backfired horribly, as Wenger called on Alexis in desperation at the start of the second half, when the game was all but over. He proceeded to liven up the game from and Arsenal came close to snatching a draw. From the point of view of a fan watching the game, it seemed like he was putting himself in the shop window. “Juventus, PSG, this is what I can do, come and get me!”
In the Liverpool game, Wenger got every tactical decision wrong. The choice of two defensive midfield players meant the midfield played too deep, allowing Liverpool too much of the ball and meant that the Gunners lacked the dynamism to press the ball.
As a result, Arsenal are outside of the top four and the Champions League places. What would that mean for the club if they finished the season in such a manner?
The lack of a Top 4 finish could have been overlooked had Arsenal won the Champions League, and the automatic qualification that goes with it. However, as is so often the case, Bayern Munich stood in the way in the last 16 and as is so often the case, they made Arsenal look like a Sunday League pub team for much of the two legs. Laurent Koscielny looked like the only player capable of matching Munich in the Arsenal defence, and in both legs once he went off, it became a massacre.
The first leg was an unacceptable level of performance from the rest of the Arsenal team. Gabriel came on for Koscielny, and looked as though he had never played in defence before. The midfield collapsed, and there was no way out as Bayern suffocated Arsenal completely. The second leg was a much better showing, and if not for completely incompetent refereeing, Arsenal may have come away with a draw, or even a victory on the night. A stonewall penalty appeal turned down, and then the circus act surrounding Koscielny’s red card turned the game of football into a farce.
The fact remains, though, that Arsenal were defeated by the biggest ever aggregate margin for an English team in the Champions League, and by the biggest ever margin at the Emirates. Other teams look at Arsenal as a joke, the standing of the club in Europe has taken a severe beating.
Twitter: What time is it? Yep, it’s ten to!
#UCL #ARSFCB https://t.co/T2lDkvivkS (@FCBayernEN)
It will take time to recover from the devastating loss suffered, it will take time and a couple of good performances for the fans to even consider forgiving players like Granit Xhaka, Nacho Monreal or Iwobi, all of whom were abysmal in at least one of the games.
However, the #WengerOut brigade grows ever louder at the Emirates, and I personally wonder if he has the motivation or the belief in himself or his players to drag Arsenal out of the massive hole that he and his squad have now dug themselves into.
He will have until the end of the season, and hopefully bow out on a high with another FA Cup win, but if he fails to make the top four coupled with performances like those of the last month, it’s hard to see how the board can justify a new contract.
It might be time for a fresh dynasty at Arsenal.
