Arsenal show plenty of weakness as Anderlecht come back to earn draw
Arsenal should still go through, but after a remarkable comeback by Anderlecht, that is hardly the point. They lead Anderlecht by five points with two games remaining, but this was a game that exposed all their frailties, mental, emotional and tactical. After an hour it was 3-0 and the game was won; by the end, they nearly lost.
One more point from the games that remain, at home to Borussia Dortmund, which confirmed their place in the knockout phase with a 4-1 win, and away against Galatasaray will take Arsenal into the last 16 for the 15th successive season. The landmark is notable, progress laudable, not least because Arsenal have gotten this far on a relatively limited budget. In that regard, Arsene Wenger’s consistency is remarkable. The problem is that we’ve seen this before. The pattern keeps repeating, the cycle goes on. Even the capacity for creating a drama out of a procession is familiar.
A fortnight ago, Arsenal looked in serious danger of failing to reach the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time since 2000. But two goals in the dying minutes in Brussels eliminated the peril. Even after being outplayed in Dortmund in the first week of action, Arsenal have gone through with two games to spare. This, perhaps, is the ultimate logic of the neo-liberal economics of the Champions League: the rich get richer and the gulf to the impoverished grows ever wider.
The champion of Belgium and the runner-up from Turkey (elevated because the champion, Fenerbahce, were banned for match-fixing) simply cannot compete in the long term. This is an exceptionally young Anderlecht side: five of the starting line-up was 21 or under: that they was enthusiastic, energetic and a little naïve is hardly surprising. Nor was the way in which Arsenal wilted in the face of their late fight-back.
Topping the group is now probably out of reach for Arsenal, who trail Dortmund by five points. If they fail to achieve that, they run the risk, yet again, of drawing a giant in the next round. If that happens, the precedent is well-established: a relatively honorable defeat and nothing really changes – assuming, as they always does, Arsenal go on to finish fourth in the Premier League and qualify for the same Euro-break next year as well.
Is there any hope anything will be different? Arsenal are just as locked in to the second tier of Europe’s hierarchy as Anderlecht is below it. Others, it’s true – the likes of Dortmund and Atletico Madrid – have managed a couple of seasons battling above their financial limitations, but there’s little in this Arsenal side to suggest they could do similarly.
Alexis Sanchez, it’s true, offers a touch of real class and was heavily involved again. The way he controlled Calum Chambers’s slightly clumsy cross after 21 minutes, and then, with a couple of adroit changes of pace created space for a shot that clattered into the post, were an object lesson in how a player with imagination and technical ability can spin gold from pretty ordinary base materials.
It was, of course, Sanchez’s pass – after he had been found in space by Aaron Ramsey, who seemed somewhere back towards his best – that released Danny Welbeck four minutes later. The forward, having scored a hat-trick in Arsenal’s last home Champions League game, muscled his way beyond Chancel Mbemba, who ended up tumbling and dragging Welbeck down. Arteta swept in the penalty – the 500th Arsenal goal at the Emirates.
The second was all about Sanchez. He charged fifty yards with the ball before being impeded by Anthony Vanden Borre. His free-kick was poor and bounced back off the wall, at which the Chilean lashed a furious volley goalwards, the ball dipping and swerving late to confound Silvio Proto. And then it was Sanchez who won possession to set up Arsenal’s third after 58 minutes, dispossessing Sacha Kljestan, the ball breaking for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who accelerated into the box and finished calmly.
Anthony Vanden Borre, looking suspiciously offside, pulled one back three minutes later, touching in a low cross from the substitute Andy Kawaya. At the time, that seemed little more than a pleasing memory for Anderlecht’s noisy cohort of away fans, but with 17 minutes remaining Nacho Monreal senselessly tugged at Aleksandar Mitrovic in the box. The Serbia international went down and Vanden Borre, playing his 23rd Champions League game and still waiting for his first win, rolled in the penalty. It could have been worse as well, the referee Clement Turpin choosing only to caution Monreal as he grabbed his arm, when he could easily have decided the offense merited what would have been Arsenal’s fourth red card in successive Champions League home games.
And in that late anxiety, of course, lies the reason Arsenal never quite kick on to the next level. There is an underlying brittleness about them, a frailty that is part emotional and part tactical, embodied in the lack of a real leader at the back of midfield, the sort of player they have been without since Patrick Vieira left in 2005. In injury-time, the equalizer came, Mitrovic, whose aggression made a real difference after he arrived from the bench, stretching to head in a right-wing cross.
In the long run, it probably changes nothing, but it did show once again that Arsenal simply aren't to be trusted.
