Has bad luck or bad finishing been hardest on Arsenal?

I am sure that some Arsenal fans will be sick of hearing that the Gunners have been unlucky, but it is hard to get away from the fact sometimes and once again tonight against Barcelona in the Nou Camp a key moment went against Arsenal and it could have proved to be a turning point in the game and the two-legged tie in general.

The pundits after the game were talking about that possible penalty for Iwobi and, after replays showed that Mascherano had caught the young Gunner even if there was no intent, we should have had a spot kick and been playing against 10 men. Wenger had clearly not seen the evidence or he would have made more of it in his post match comments but he did say that he felt that Barca were wobbling a bit when Elneny did make it 1-1, so how much more would they have been feeling the nerves at 2-1 down and a man down?

Arsenal really have had some shocking luck with decisions at key moments this season and it must be said that this has really hurt us. At the same time, we still have ourselves to blame for the failure to finish so many chances since the turn of the year.

Even without the penalty tonight we had lots of chances to really get at Barca and did not take them, just like in our FA cup exit to Watford and our damaging defeat to Swansea in the Premier League recently, to name but a few of many games like this. With better finishing we may not have needed better luck and a non-penalty would be a side note. What do you think?

Tags Barcelona Elneny Wenger

23 Comments

    1. As long as no one blames wenger then it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is because one thing is for sure it isn’t his fault.
      Personally I think they must have built the Emirates on an old Indian burial ground, it’s as good an excuse as any. Just don’t blame the manager.

    2. The fact is we and Sanches are not good enough, all we are is Competitors, just qualifying is the game plan. Just buy bargin players and hope they can fit in for the money spent, Glad I don’t spend my well earns money on watching this crap. CB

      1. What bad luck ?!!! Was it bad luck that Barca passing made you an spectator? Couldn’t see or touch the ball many many long time.
        Yes I agree with bad luck but not for the game??!! Bad luck that we have greedy owners like Kroenke, more bad luck Wenger still manager.

  1. lets put our own house in order first.
    if we had seen sane moves by wenger to fix our myriad problems, then we could have moaned about luck & referees etc.

    but we’re not even at that point. there are glaring problems that all but wenger agree need to be fixed and there are obvious fixes for them that he has failed to execute on in several seasons. thats our #1 problem and it needs to be taken care of first.

    1. and by glaring problems i mean our lack of striker efficiency. too low conversion rate.

      giroud doesnt dribble well enough and goes missing for good chunks of the season. had pinned our hopes on walcott, but he gets flustered in 1:1 with goalie and while he has speed, he is also not great at dribbling through. and although i like welbeck the most, his conversion rate is also not very high. since wenger chose (or failed ) to get a striker last summer, one of 2 things is true:

      1. either he thinks we can win PL w these strikers (in which case he is deluded),
      OR
      2. secretly our goal is top4 and he doesnt really care if we win PL or not (deceptiveness).

      so either wenger is deluded, or deceptive. i dont know which is worse.

      1. 90% deceptive.
        5% stubborn and deluded.
        5% hopeful all the top teams
        would fall over …but
        He did not account for a Leicester 🙂

  2. Arsenal does not need any luck.
    We have the Franchise
    4th place last 16 model.
    8 ECL games with the
    associated mega million dollar TV monies has been achieved.
    Job done. Congratulations Stan, Arsene and the team.
    Stan’s happy, the board’s happy.
    Arsene got paid his 154k last night Walcott 110k
    Ozil and Sanchez 140k Wellbeck got 100k Koz 90k
    Flamini 80k for 44 minutes Merts 70k + Gibbs 70k
    for sitting on the bench heck even Rosicky got 80k
    Wilshere got paid 90k Ox got 90k even Sanogo got 50k last night.
    Everyones happy 🙂 🙂 🙂

    1. Damn I laughed hard, gr8 analysis bro! the only ones suffering are the fans who contributes to all those salaries whether they play well or not, whether they give their all or not, whether they miss sitters or not, all pain goes to the fans while they are always happy week in week out

  3. bad luck is defined by having your feature striker svore 13.3 goals per season in the epl and expecting good results. 4 yrs of data folks, it is what it is… and its not going to get better… either buy a stud in the center, or rely on luck to get 2 goals per match…

    1. People love to bring up strikers but we are missing quality attacking midfielders and wingers. We have no one besides Sanchez and Ozil who can take people on and Bellerin. Campbell, Iwobi, Ox, they are all average. We will be lucky to finish top four. Our only realistic goal.

      1. Iwobi @ 19 holding his own against the best club in the world as average?

        Campbell possibly

        Theo and Ox would be overjoyed 2 be considered average @ the moment.

        Iwobi and El Neny were Arsenals two best field players on the pitch tonight and should feature the remainder of the EPL season.

        Theo/Ox and Ramsey should be forever Mickey Mouse Cup contributors

        1. Iwobi did a decent job holding the ball. Dribbling in space. Passing was poor. Finishing poor. He turned the ball over very cheaply and against good teams that’s a goal (Kos). He’s no Martial or Lingard or Traore or Igheacho ..there’s no signs of anything special coming from him. Just my humble opinion.

      2. Yes, strikers miss a lot of goals and we witness that every week, who should we blame? Ozil that his passes are missed by our st***d strikers?

  4. Suarez/Messi/Neymar

    or

    Giroud/Welbeck/Sanchez/Walcott

    Why is it such a connodrum for those to qualify why we don’t consistently score goals?

    Arsenal MUST have terrible luck, yep that has to be it.

    Reflecting over the recent transfer windows, would this reality be that far fetched and outside the accepted financial norm that is AFC?

    Lukaku
    Sanchez….Ozil….Iwobi
    Krychowiak…..Santi
    Nacho…Boss…Toby A…Hector
    Cech

    Over the last 5 Windows roughly that would amount to $130M spent, 20M less than Shitty spent on Raheem and KDB this past summer.

    We need a bilion dollar miracle from Africa to rescue this once great club.

  5. We created more chances than Barcelona. They scored two goals from mistakes by Koscielny otherwise it’s a 1-1 game. Unfortunate because you can see he was trying really hard.

    If we play like we did against them for the rest of the season we might still have a chance to win the league, very little one, but only if we play like last evening.

    Sanchez was a far more dangerous player on the right side today. It is better if he plays there and Joel and Iwobi should fight for the other wing spot. Welbeck should continue starting upfront. Should’ve bagged a goal himself.

  6. Well, I won’t blame Wenger for quality cos each of those players were quality in their own sense as far as I’m concerned. Same Giroud scored d hat-trick that sent us to the round of 16.
    However, I blame the coach for tactical naivity. He should have known that games like this, Ozil hardly shows up and should have removed him fast and put Sanchez at the 10 role, keep Welbeck on the wing and bring Giroud up front and Walcott or Campbell on the other wing. I’m very sure the result would have been different. Barca need opponents with pace and good work rate at both ends of the pitch as well as heights. But Wenger doesn’t like to remove Ozil cos he’s the top signing of the club. Well, too late to cry when the head is off.

    1. Giroud scored a hat trick, how many of those? Once in four seasons, even Sanogo scored a hat trick, does he hav the quality to lead Arsenal front line? Never. Arsenal is full of average players , stop over hyping them

  7. YES.we were unlucky and barca were very lucky to score three.buyern were lucky too.arsenal is the only team that is always unlucky because our strikers are world class.our manager is a genius. we may go on loosing and miss out EPL but we can say that we were just unlucky

  8. Everyone is saying a good striker is the problem. Nah the backline is bad. We concede goals so easily. Need one of those Lecster biggies plus One precise midfielder and we win again.

  9. Bad luck or bad finishing? Bit of each maybe. When Suarez was at Liverpool they called he SAS.
    or three musketeers. Barcelona have the three musketeers in Neymar, Messi and Suarez , Arsenal
    have but 2. Wenger never added the third.

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