It was important for Arsenal to get a good start and put early pressure on Monaco tonight and we did that for about FIVE MEASLY MINUTES, and it was all downhill from there. After using our pace and the wide areas well and getting the French team in a bit of a spin, the visitors soon started to settle down and get into the game and the Gunners just let them.
Once they had a couple of good opportunities it made us cautious as concern about their defensive record and the away goal problem kicked in. The attitude was understandable but it ruined our play, especially going forwards as moves broke down and we couldn’t find any fluency, which made Monaco’s job easy and let them attack us. With great success.
There were some 1st half chances for Arsenal and better ones than the few Monaco managed, but after Giroud spurned one before halftime, we were punished with the away goal that we had been desperate to avoid. Kondogbia’s deflected shot left Ospina rooted. A bit unlucky but he should never had the freedom of the pitch.
It was going badly wrong and Wenger had a massive job to get the Gunners sorted out for the second half. A good start would be to replace the lacklustre Ozil. The manager made no changes but we should have been level after 5 minutes when Cazorla won a free kick and found him but his header was poor.
THen we hit the self destruct and left ourselves exposed at the back. Mertesacker lost his man who found Berbatov to score a second and leave our Champions League hopes in tatters. When Giroud ballooned over an open goal, that seemed to seal our doom.
Giroud went off for Walcott who almost got us back into it but his shot was blocked and then he deflected Welbeck’s on target shot over the bar to just about sum up our night. Chamberlain had replaced Coquelin and our pressing left us dangerously exposed to a third.
They nearly did before the Ox gave us a lifeline right at the end with a great curling strike, only for him to then make the mistake that let Monaco crush our fading hopes with a breakaway third goal.
An absolute disaster for Arsenal.