Arsenal certainly made up for last week’s awful defeat at BATE by beating them 3-0 last night, and at last it was a polished performance from the Gunners. It was imperative that we did not concede again to make the job even harder, but when we got a lucky own goal right at the start we could relax and go for the winner.
But we still had to be pragmatic in defence, and it was great to see us hold off BATE, who admittedly didn’t cause us too many problems. But they very nearly scored but luckily Stephan Lichtsteiner was on the line to keep the ball out of the net. After the game the Swiss was understandably happy. He said: “It’s important to keep a clean sheet because if we conceded then we would have needed to score three goals, so even at 2-0 you need to be focused in the game. It was a very good game tactically, but also mentality wise.”
He was also glad to see the team . “We are happy that we passed through this round, so we will look forward to the next round. It was our objective to get through this round. Of course it wasn’t easy after losing the away game 1-0, so we had to be very carefulhav a good performance as well that they didn’t take over. In the end it was a good performance and we’re happy that we’re into the next round.
“We played very well, but we have to keep working. It’s our mentality and our way.”
So it was a very good night for our defence, especially as Mustafi and Sokratis scored our other two goals, and hopefully Koscielny hasn’t got a bad injury. This should stand us in good stead and I can’t wait to see who we are going to get in the next round….
Admin