Morning all.
Has an Arsenal game ever become this big? Of course, a match in Paris was once huge. Winning the Champions League would have been no more than Arsene Wenger deserved but the odd thing about that final is that Arsenal reached it after the Invincible squad had began to breakup. To this day I’ll never understand why Arsenal, under the Frenchman, didn’t reach more finals in Europe during his early years.
As a club, we’ve enormously declined since that 2006 final. Whereas once Champions League football was almost a foregone conclusion, we’re now struggling to secure a place in the Europa League for next season. How/why we are where we are now is a subject which has been discussed on here ever since the HH began and I suppose it’ll carry on until we’re back in the top four and goodness knows when that will be.
But, as it’s been for the last couple of years, another route to Champions League is there for us. Previously we’ve failed though and in terms of the final against Chelsea, yes, it was a failure. The performance from Arsenal that day was simply dreadful against what was then, a pretty average Chelsea team. The previous season, was equally as poor when during the home tie against Atletico Madrid, the visitors were down to ten men inside ten minutes. That was our chance but we blew it as Arsene Wenger’s team could only manage a 1-1, the Atletico away goal proving to be a disaster as we lost 1-0 in Spain.
Conceding an away goal undid us again last season and at this stage of the competition. Having won the away tie 1-0, Arsenal were in a great position to go through. All we needed at The Emirates was to not concede more than one goal against Olympiakos. An attacking unit of Aubameyang, Lacazette, Mesut Ozil and Nicolas Pepe – £220m odd of talent, winning that game should have been a certainty. However, we lost 2-1 and went out on away goals. According to the stats, Arsenal had 19 shots with just 4 on target. Aubameyang missed a sitter which would have taken us through to the next round. Oh the irony.
Decisions didn’t necessarily go Arsenal’s way that night as the yellow card shown to Ba for a foul on the edge of the area could have been red, and there was more than a hint of offside in the build up for Olympiakos’ second goal. But sometimes stats don’t lie, Arsenal simply weren’t ruthless or decisive enough up front.
Here we are, twelve months later and were saying the same things. Arsenal simply aren’t clinical or decisive enough in the final third. The build up play is too slow and goal scoring opportunities are being spurned. Our tie tomorrow night hangs in the balance because when the chances came in the ‘away’ leg, we didn’t take them. Had Aubameyang scored his early and easy chance, things might have turned out so very different. As it is, it’s 1-1 but at least we have that all important away goal thanks to Saka.
A year ago, Arsenal came away from the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis with a 1-0 victory. Achieve the same result tomorrow evening and it’ll be enough to go through.
See you in the comments.
Morning Rico, thanks for the link and a very good post.
Arsenal in Europe, it’s like a soap opera, but our record against Portuguese teams is actually quite good.
Arsenal knocked Sporting out 2-0 on aggregate in 1969/70
Benfica beat us on the break 2-4 on aggregate in 1991/92
After that it goes.
2006/07 vs Porto, won 2-0 drew 0-0
2008/09 vs Porto, won 4-0 lost 0-2
2009/10 vs Porto, won 5-0 lost 1-2
2010/11 vs Braga, won 6-0 lost 0-2
2018/19 vs Sporting, drew 0-0 won 1-0 (first win in Portugal)
2019/20 vs Vitoria, won 3-2 drew 1-1
Any win or a 0-0 and we’re through…
Thomas Partey to start I reckon…
Morning Kev, thanks.
Agree, European football and Arsenal have been a terrible pairing. Why though I wonder? I’ve always thought it’s because the manager looks at the tie as two games rather than one with halftime at 90 mins.
Partey and Tierney I reckon, a huge boost if both are fit to start.
We simply can’t afford any passengers tomorrow, Pepe and Auba need a big performance if they play. Think I’d prefer to see Lacazette up front.
Good Morning everyone
Tomorrow I will only play Lacazette in attack, flanked by Martinelli, ESR and Saka.
Central midfield I would play Xhaka and Partey
Defence I would put Bellerin, Luiz, Mari, Tierney.
We need to win. I feel that Benfica will attack which will suit us. They will not sit back and will want to find an opener. It is of paramount importance that we concentrate from the first second of the game. If they find a goal then they will retreat and allow us no room. So we need to concentrate and score early as well.
I don’t Devil. I think they’ll defend strongly and try to catch us on the break. They only need one goal.
I reckon that with AW after 2004 (the Invincibles season) the emphasis was more on the European front than the domestic front. His holy grail was the Champions league, and had he won it in 2006 I presume he would have left earlier than he did. His style of play was more suited to European football rather than domestic leagues. Had he concentrated more on the domestic front I feel he would have won more leagues and FA cups as well. But he put all the team’s efforts and style on Europe. He failed as we all know but the money from Europe was more important than winning domestically. I think he had an agreement with the club…..they concentrate their efforts on paying the stadium while the money he got from Europe he spent on players.
Maybe Gazides will write a book about that period?
Kev, the Rat on the Titanic would be a great name for it!!
Morning all.
Big Giroud keeps doing what’s he’s always done.
He was a highly under rated player for us.
I still think we should have never sold Giroud Scott. Although I like the way Lacazette plays as a focal point I still feel Giroud should have been the focal point in our attack. He would have surely been of more benefit to ESR, Saka, MArtinelli, and Pepe. His big frame always makes it difficult for opponents.
The only snag is his speed. Otherwise he is top notch.
I saw his goal yesterday….it was simply superb.
Ha ha Kev, he’s struggle to fill a chapter.
I’m not sure he was underrated Scott, he just did fit because we didn’t play to his strengths. Why have a big man up front if a team can’t cross a ball?
Benfica plays almost the season, in the next game. They will play behind closed, using the offside rule, with a strong midfield and fast counterattack. It will play in the mistake of Arsenal and in the collective positioning.
Questions:
a) Was Mavididi not an Arsenal player?
b) Benfica had (and has) plans to buy Charlton, via Jorge Mendes
c) The Laca-Auba duo, with many attempts used in the past (Ex: at the time of
Emery and beyond), it doesn’t work. And it’s not the quality of the players. is to complement them. I would like to see Balogun play (either in U-23 or in the main team) The idea I have is that the best team would be Laca-Balogun.
Rico, he was a lot of fans scapegoat on too many occasions for mine, even when he’d done little or nothing wrong in games.
I agree we didn’t play a style that got the best out of him which adds weight to my comment, I reckon.
Fans who know the game should have known better.
Devil, he’s been a quality performer for a long time now, no question.
Fans that know the game are few and far between . Any trawl around sites following a poor display and you will see the comments coming thick and fast . At least here people try to be constructive , Giroud was never Henry or Wright and most of the Red Action vocal on social media complainents were too young to remember Smith .
Whilst we played the slow build up tippy tappy style Giroud would always suffer but when the mask dropped and he came on to rescue a game he scored goals . He was slow when it came to a sprint but if you time a run in the box you don’t have to be a sprinter
Hi Rico and all
Giroud goal yesterday reminded me of his scorpion goal when he played for us.
I wonder how Lukas Podolski would have gone in our current side.
I used to love Giroud,as Scott says we didn’t play to his strengths,despite this he had a good scoring record.
I’d agree with Devils team selection for tomorrow,what a test it will be.An old cliche but feels like our biggest game for some time.
Cricket not looking good.
Afternoon Rico and the House
Nice sunny day is every in their garden
I forgot about the cricket, what a disgrace…
I was hoping nobody would mention it. 😒
is every one
Hi Rico… Nice post. I’m really anxious over tomorrow. This is it, last chance saloon! As much as I’m not a lover of the EL, imagine having no European football at all next season!!!
I hope the players are up for it and they don’t see this as another training session, like our last 2 games have been..
Partey travelled, so that’s good. Holding didn’t make it…
What a disgrace thist wjcket is.
Why should the best team in the world take to preparing a wicket like that,
just to show how good they are.
Afternoon and thanks Sue, Rick all.
I get that Scott, but I think on here, he was accepted for the kind of player he was.
https://highbury-house.com/2021/02/25/arsenal-heading-into-a-make-or-break-period/
Morning, new post up.