Arsenal's Champions League dream ends, fall short against Monaco
The miracle nearly happened on Tuesday night, but it didn’t. Instead Arsenal slipped out of the UEFA Champions League in familiar fashion, producing a much-improved performance in the second leg of a knockout tie that wasn’t quite enough to undo the damage of the first leg. Arsenal was far, far better than it had been three weeks ago, playing with verve and zest and a relentless controlled energy, but Monaco held on to lose 2-0 and so go through 3-3 on aggregate.
Arsenal can draw heart from its performance for the remainder of the season, for the pursuit of Champions League football next season and perhaps second place in the table — possibly, if Jose Mourinho is to be believed, which he shouldn’t be, even for an improbable run at the title — but that cannot disguise what a missed opportunity this was. Here, Arsenal showed how it should have dealt with Monaco at Emirates Statdium, showed what a chance of reaching the last eight the draw had given it.
"The best team went through," Arsenal captain Per Mertesacker told ITV 1 after the match. "They deserved it because they played much better in the first leg. You come here and try absolutely everything. You look at the game and we could have scored more than two. We don't look back to the first game — that was already over — and we tried to do our best today but it wasn't enough."
He added: "They deserve it and that's absolutely fine because away from home they played a lot better and we had a lot of problems. We responded well today, we have to admit that."
History made clear the magnitude of Arsenal’s task on the night: Only Ajax, against Benfica in 1969 had ever come from losing the home leg by two goals to win a European Cup or Champions League — and even it needed a replay. So too did a glance at Monaco’s defensive record; it has the meanest rearguard in France, having conceded just 20 goals in 28 games, and only seven of those at home; it has conceded just two goals in its last 13 league games; and no away side had scored three in a game at the Stade Louis II for three and a half years.
The 3-1 defeat at the Emirates was a new low in Arsenal’s recent European history, a sloppy, wasteful performance that meant any advantage a relatively gentle draw may have offered was squandered. Some might have been tempted into a complete change of approach but not Arsene Wenger, who made only one change form that side, bringing in Nacho Monreal for Kieran Gibbs at left back. An impressive show of faith, or typical of Wenger’s stubbornness and refusal ever to adapt to circumstance?
Given Monaco’s propensity for playing on the break — something Arsenal discovered to its cost in the first leg — Arsenal had to balance its approach. To have over-committed would simply to have been to invite a goal like Monaco’s second and third at the Emirates. Slowly, though, it did begin to impose itself on the first half, at least in terms of possession and playing the game in Monaco’s half.
Chances slowly materialized. Olivier Giroud did well to outmuscle Wallace to meet a Hector Bellerin cross, but couldn’t guide his header on target, then Laurent Koscielny hit the bar from close range after a free-kick fell to him — although as it turned out he had been debatably penalized for offside. And then, after 36 minutes, came an opening goal that energized the tie.
Fabinho lost possession, Danny Welbeck slipped Giroud in behind the Monaco defense and, although his initial shot was blocked by the goalkeeper Danijel Subasic, the ball cannoned into the forward’s face and fell kindly, allowing him to lash a finish past the two defenders on the line. It was a fine finish in any circumstances, but particularly for a player who had missed three such presentable chances in the first leg.
Two minutes later a half-cleared cross fell for Welbeck, whose first-time shot struck a prone Aymen Abdennour and was deflected just wide. For a 20-minute spell split by halftime, Arsenal was rampant, its passing crisp, its play purposeful. There were other chances — a Welbeck cross that popped off Giroud kindly for Subasic off, a Mesut Ozil free-kick that was tipped over, an Ozil half-volley that flashed wide — but as the clock ran down, Monaco’s self-belief seemed to grow. Suddenly, the counters had menace again.
And yet by the final quarter-hour, Arsenal had come again. There is a strange form of heart that shows itself most clearly when the situation is lost. Monaco ended up camped in its box, with Arsenal prodding and probing, looking for channels of space. And with 11 minutes to go, it found one. Monreal made a run down the left, Ozil found him with a delicious pass and when the left-back cross, Theo Walcott struck the post. Layvin Kurzawa’s clearance, though, was poor, and Aaron Ramsey drove a shot low past Subasic.
The Croatian keeper clawed away a Giroud effort almost immediately, but thereafter the ball just wouldn’t break for Arsenal. It had plenty of chances around the box, but Monaco dealt with each cross and each attempted through-ball and clung on.
"Today was a completely different day and we could have scored more but it's a game and if we continue to play like that I think then we have a great chance in the FA Cup and the league," Mertesacker added. "When you have one bad game in the Champions League that's the beauty of the game, you're out, even against a team that was underestimated."
As Tuesday night showed, the damage of the first leg was just too great.
