MOTD: Arsenal 1-3 AS Monaco

By on February 25, 2015

Arsene Wenger has a habit of making a hash of landmark occasions. His 1000th match in charge of Arsenal: a 6-0 loss to Chelsea; his 900th match at the club: a 3-3 draw with Norwich City; his 500th match at The Emirates: a 2-1 loss to Chelsea. Today, his first competitive match against his former club, AS Monaco, could not have gone any worse.

As Dimitar Berbatov, forever in Arsenal’s nightmares, put it after the match, Monaco simply “wanted to win more.” An utterly damning statement whatever the situation, but considering Monaco represented Arsenal’s best chance to progress to the Champions League quarterfinals in years, all too true — Arsenal looked unprepared and tactically uncoordinated. Though Monaco arrived at the Emirates with just two players above the age of thirty and a squad averaging only twenty-four, they made Arsenal look the inexperienced side; and not an elite Monaco with James Rodriguez and Falcao long gone and Jérémy Toulalan also missing. Indeed, the club scored only four goals in the Group Stages; however, today they nearly doubled their tally as Arsenal were humiliated.

It was particularly baffling considering how good Wenger’s men were last month, beating Manchester City and thumping Aston Villa. Referee Deniz Atyekin reportedly runs a horoscope consulting firm, yet even he would not have predicted tonight’s result. For the slim hopes Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s late goal gave Arsenal in the tie, he was just minutes responsible for erasing them as he failed to track the run of Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco. Even when Arsenal scored, they didn’t seem to know what approach to take to find an equalizer. Oxlade-Chamberlain’s goal had come from a set piece and an individual piece of brilliance, but collectively, Arsenal failed to impress.

There were moments of flash and flare, particularly from Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla, but that’s all they were: moments. Once the ball moved on, side to side, back and forth it went again: their passes innumerable, yet their chances few. In and around their own box it happened at one point, before Joao Moutinho dispossessed them and had a penalty appeal turned down.

As aimless as The Gunners were in attack, in defense they were simply naive. Their attacking had varying levels of success, either naught, or self-inhibiting — for the n’th time, they have lost to a counter-attacking team, and while Wenger has proven he does have a strategy to face such opposition, it was lost on Arsenal today. So often their defenders were attracted to the ball, and then one quick pass from Moutinho, who exploited the gaps in their defense like an adult nutmegging a child, and Monaco were off to the races. Exactly this happened thirty-six minutes in and Geoffrey Kondogbia had all the time in the world to get a shot off from twenty yards, which admittedly took a lucky deflection off Per Mertesacker to divert into the back of the net.

Arsenal had a more promising start, with Danny Welbeck holding off his marker to find a sight of goal from naught early on and firing over, admittedly, off-balance. Yet before Wenger could even get his jacket zipped, it unceremoniously ended. From there, it wouldn’t be unfair to call it a “classic” Arsenal loss.

Monaco’s second goal came on the break as well. Three Arsenal defenders sucked up to Fabinho, who released Anthony Martial down the left on a two-on-one with Dimitar Berbatov against Laurent Koscielny. Bringing the French defender towards him, Martial slid the ball across the box to Berbatov, who took his time to smack a finish past David Ospina.

Giroud missed a sitter fifty-seven minutes in, having only been awarded the chance after Monaco goalkeeper Daniel Subasic parried Alexis Sanchez’s low shot right into the Frenchman’s path. Earlier, Giroud had poorly headed Mesut Oil’s tantalizing free-kick over the crossbar, but this miss helped spell the end of his night. Theo Walcott came on while Welbeck moved up front, only for the latter to miss another big chance — incidentally, his effort hit Walcott and looped over the goal after the ball had spilled out from Subasic’s and Walcott’s clash.

And just when Arsenal appeared to have undeservedly salvaged something from the match, with Chamberlain curling a beauty around Subasic into the top right corner in the first minute of stoppage time, The Ox’s giveaway in the final minute led directly to Monaco’s counter-attack. Bernardo Silva slipped Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco down the right wing, and though the forward slightly scuffed his fifteen-yard effort, the ball just evaded the hand of Ospina and wriggled in off the post. Arsenal now need at least three in Monaco to advance in the Champions League; on this form, one goal may very well evade them.
Man of the Match: Joao Moutinho

Photo credit: Gordon Flood on Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.