Yet again we have the story of our season. Arsenal had the lions share of possession against Atletico, and we had countless chances to get into scoring positions, but ended up with just 7 shots on goal and only ONE of them was on target. I suppose it makes a chance from our usual stats that show we have 20 plus shots and still don’t score!
The other half of our season’s story is the defensive errors that are gifted to our opponents. Last night Diego Costa, who always scores against us, finds himself through on the centre of the goal with only Bellerin within ten yards of him! Do we have a central defence? But if we go back to the first leg where we did nothing but attack, attack and still only scored once, and then the usual defensive bloomer which gifted the Spaniards a draw and an away goal.
Even Wenger must be totally sick of saying the same thing after so many games this season, but this was the case again last night. “We missed something in the final third because we had plenty of opportunities.” Wenger said yet agan. “If you look at the number of chances we created over the two games, the least you can say is that we can be very frustrated. In the first game, the tie should be over and in the second game, in the first half, we had plenty of opportunities but we always missed something in the final ball.”
But he did have a complaint about the ref as well of course, as he thinks we should have been playing against ten men again, but he did enjoy watching a team that could actually defend. “They are a team who defends well. I believe as well we were a bit unlucky a few times because I think Gabi is happy to stay on the pitch, they broke up a few counter attacks voluntarily and it took the referee a while to give a yellow to Gabi and they were in situations where we could have been very dangerous., But overall they are a clever side who defends very well. Godin tonight saved five or six balls on crosses in amazing positions, great defenders.”
So despite the fact that we can’t score, and we can’t defend, how did he feel about getting knocked out? “I’m like the team, very sad and very disappointed.” Le Prof said, yet again. “Overall I’m even very frustrated as well. When you go out of a competition and give the performances we did over 180 minutes, it’s very difficult to take. Now for the club, they’ve got some time to think a out what to do for next season. I think there are some good ingredients in our team and they will bounce back. These players have quality and with the right additions in the summer, they have the ingredients to compete next year.”
The right additions? I think we have heard this before! Or am I imagining things?
Darren N