Monaco eye quarterfinals after stunning lifeless Arsenal in London
LONDON
For Arsenal, this was bad, very bad. After a series of difficult draws in the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League, there was almost glee when, last December, it was paired with Monaco, which had topped its group while scoring just four goals. Here, at last, it seemed, was a chance to make real progress in the competition.
It will take something extraordinary in Monte Carlo if Arsenal is to make the quarterfinal after losing to Monaco 3-1 on Wednesday night. Only six times in Champions League history has any side progressed having lost the home leg, let alone by two goals. It wasn’t just the draw that had spread hope.
"It was a horrible night as you said but congratulations to Monaco," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger told Sky Sports after the loss. "They defended very well and caught us on the break. We had the chances we didn't take and were the worst side defensively. We knew at halftime to keep our nerves and in our vast experience of this competition we knew that we couldn't afford it."
Wenger added: "Everything went for them tonight but as well you see in the group stage they were very well-organized. The task is massive now and the third goal makes it more difficult. We have a goal, of course, and will see what we can do there."
After the win away to Manchester City last month, there was talk of a new Arsenal, one with a holding midfielder and a backbone. This, though, was very much old Arsenal, needlessly over-complicating attacks, while capable of dire lapses of focus at the back. Monaco was disciplined in defense and clinical when chances arose but the Gunners could hardly have been more obliging.
Monaco’s strength this season has been its defense and, even without three key players because of injury and suspension, it was easy to see why it’s regarded as the king of the 1-0 in France. In the 12 games before this one, Monaco had conceded just twice. The back four sat deep with three holding players just in front and, after an opening five minutes in which Danny Welbeck fired just over and then almost got on the end of a Kieran Gibbs cross, Arsenal struggled to create chances. The great strength of Arsene Wenger’s side is its pace in forward areas, with Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez, but they never had the space to exploit that advantage.
Sanchez’s form is becoming something of a concern. After a blistering start to the season that meant he was almost universally hailed as the signing of the summer, the Chilean maestro has slowed down a little and probably hasn’t quite been at his best since his return form injury. From a long-term perspective, the biggest worry is that Sanchez hasn’t yet scored when he’s played with Mesut Ozil, Arsenal’s two most expensive players struggling to strike up an understanding. The Germany World Cup winner did lay on a chance for Sanchez after 33 minutes, but the ball got caught under his feet and he ended up scooping his effort over the bar.
There were occasional flurries — an Ozil backheel to Santi Cazorla that he turned wide for the overlapping Hector Bellerin, whose low cross Olivier Groud couldn’t control after it took a deflection off a defensive leg — but there was much that was one-paced and predictable about Arsenal’s approach. Too often they took an extra touch, too often there was a lack of urgency about their play.
And then, seven minutes before halftime, came a familiar combination of sloppiness and ill-fortune that handed Monaco the lead. When Joao Moutinho laid the ball inside to Geoffrey Kondogbia 40 yards form goal, there shouldn’t have been much danger. But he was allowed to take a touch and set himself, almost as though Arsenal had got into the mentality of thinking the game was just about them knocking at the Monaco door. When he shot powerfully, the ball deflected off Per Mertesacker and past David Ospina — the first goal Monaco had scored in the opening hour of a Champions League game this season.
Arsenal had its chances at the beginning of the second half. First Sanchez, finally getting a run at Elderson Echiejile, crossed for Giroud, who fired tamely wide. The striker then headed a Cazorla free-kick over and was left beating the ground in his frustration. The night would soon get worse.
As an Arsenal free-kick was cleared after 53 minutes, Fabinho led the break. He battled his way to halfway and then played in Anthony Martial on the left. His ball inside was perfectly weighted and Dimitar Berbatov, unflustered as only he can be, finished with louche inevitability to make the score 2-0. It could easily have been worse, Ospina racing form his line to make a fine block at the feet of Martial after Moutinho had flicked Nabil Dirar’s pass into his path.
Giroud, by that stage, had been withdrawn for his own good after a staggering miss, firing the rebound over after Danijel Subasic had parried a Sanchez shot. It wasn’t just him, though. Theo Walcott, who replaced him, darted in from the right only for Subasic to save and then, as he tumbled, inadvertently deflected Welbeck’s follow-up over the bar.
From then on it was an exercise in aggravation, the vast majority of the Emirates Stadium faithful going through the full symphony of groans and repressed fuming until, in the final minute, a corner broke to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who bent a superb finish into the top corner. was a goal that kindled hope, but that was soon extinguished as Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco broke to fire a low finish in off the far post to seal the 3-1 victory.
It was all depressingly familiar. That it wasn’t against a Bayern Munich or a Barcelona only made it worse.
"It's very, very disappointing and the Champions League is down to the performance on the day," a frustrated Wenger tldo reporters after the match. "If you don't perform at the level that is requested for 90 minutes, you are punished because the teams have the quality. We knew before the game they absorb you, then get you on the break, and what happened?"
