Bayern Munich are one of the best teams in Europe. I say this early on because it is vital that we remember this in the coming days. They are better than us and they beat us, I challenge anyone to dispute this claim.
Nevertheless upsets do happen, as we saw last weekend football matches aren’t won on paper. We had a chance this evening, as we do in every game. We are Arsenal Football Club, a club capable of beating the very best on our day. Unfortunately, today was not our day.
I had worries from the outset, starting with the team sheet. As much as I feel Ramsey is a good player, the emission of Olivier Giroud was, in my opinion, unforgivable.
This season Olivier has proven himself to be a real asset up front. This is not to take anything away from Walcott, but I do feel he should have started on the right instead of Ramsey. Ramsey is a useful player, but he is simply not on the same level as the Bayern team.
It seems to me that the goals we gave away were avoidable, but inevitable. Bayern were always going to score goals and I have no excuses for why they were able to do so. I don’t think any Arsenal players individual performance can be given as a reason for anyone of the goals (except perhaps Ramsey’s poor defending before Bayern’s 2nd).
I genuinely believe that every player gave 100% tonight and that there is no shame in being beaten by a better team. Indeed, Podolski’s goal gives us a slim chance of getting something at the Allianz arena (a chance that I did not believe we were likely to get).
The debate over tonight’s game will rage on for days but the facts cannot be ignored. Firstly, there is an extremely high chance that our season ended tonight. We would need a miracle in Germany to progress and we are already well out of all other competitions.
The second issue is one of competitiveness. I no longer expect to get anything out of games such as tonight’s, nor do I expect to be ‘there or there abouts’ at the end of the season in the league. The team isn’t competing anymore and that I feel is the saddest thing to take away from tonight.
February’s barely started and our season is virtually over. Arsenal fans don’t care about the 8-year baron spell, they care about being given the chance to end it. At the moment, the club has not been given that chance.
I appreciate that the tone of this article is rather depressing and I apologise for that. We played well tonight, but Arsenal playing well is no longer a match for the titans of Europe.
After the game this evening I found myself a bag of mixed emotions. I could not be angry or upset with the team (although I am a tad irritated with Walcott for missing a superb chance in the second half). But at the same time, I wanted to say we’d had a bad game. Any excuse for losing tonight would have made me feel better, but there isn’t one.
We lost tonight because Munich are on a whole different level to Arsenal, and this is the worry that tonight’s game left me with.
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