In the end a draw was enough to see Arsenal qualify for the next stage but it was hardly a classic.
Arsenal made a decent if not dazzling start and even though Arsene Wenger had made the usual mass of changes it looked as though the 11 players would be too good for the visitors. Even the young stand in keeper Matt Macey making his European debut showed early on that he would not be a weak link.
The gunners were in control and in Wilshere, Walcott and Giroud it felt as though it was a matter of time before we opened the scoring, but despite the domination and a few chances it did not happen and the visitors started to get back into it, while Arsenal became worryingly worse.
So much so that it was a huge relief to get into halftime on level terms. That was thanks to a great fingertip save onto the bar at point blank range by Macey and a shocking miss by the Red Star strike Boakye. Much better needed after the break!
I suppose we were better after the break, especially for the first 10 minutes and in flashes after that, but it never really caught fire although the clearance of the line to deny Jack Wilshere a goal was pretty special. Luckily enough Cologne beat BATE so the Gunners are into the next round and should have no problem topping the group either.
The 3-4-2-1 formation requires creativity and penetrations from the three attackers. Unfortunately they were rusty and produced some bad first touches.
If Sanchez is injured, there will be no player left that could replace him. Arsenal have to get another skillful and creative attacking midfielder in January.
Hopefully, the Lemar transfer goes through or we try to get Draxler or Mahrez. We should have done this in the summer not January
don’t giroud, theo and coq realize these are the games where they can make a case for the starting 11?
There position is subs & not likely to be any better only worse in terms of leaving the club.
Nelson and maitland are so much better
i know bro but why aren’t the senior players trying to lead the team….bunch of headless chickens
You think they care? Whoever play well it will take time for Wenger to recognize it and play the best player. Xhaka has been shitting on us and he is still the 1st player on the team sheet! What did Walcott did to deserve to start, worse to play 90 mins?
Coquelin had a go at least but most of what he did came off badly # trying to hard.
Good to Macey get game time you never know when we may need him with Emi not here this season.
Nelson has quality but likes to come through the middle naturally as a high up the pitch attacker.
Maitland niles I thought did okay tonight.
Elneny scares me anywhere on the pitch.
Elneny + BFG = no fingernails for me.
It still feels weird seeing so many players playing out of position. Lets see what team wenger picks when we meet better teams in this competition.
Well it is Wenger, he never learns
and November begins
notice the lack of comments on here -compare to cl nights
ppl have stopped caring
sad
I get angry when someone says that we should replace xhaxa with elneny in the starting xi
But why? Xhaka is rubbish…
Through to the last 32 but far from convincing.
coquelin and Walcott are the worst thing that ever happened at arsenal
With all his experience and pace, why can’t Walcott time his runs off the last defender, so as not to be caught offside consistently?
if they dont play some of the first team in the knockout round we will be definitely be out of the europa league against the likes of lyon
All i see here is negativity all the way. A second-string team (none of them is in the first 11 of today) has pulled another good game. If it was Mourinho fielding a completely different team and pulling result it would be “genius”. Guys…relax…safe your energy. For the first time in years, we can afford to play a game (evem at Europe level) without any member of the first 11 anywhere near the bench. Celebrate your team….and let’s continue to move on.
I was there trust me we do not have any idea how to support our team. Guys from red star were not even breathing in between their chants and songs and drums!
iwobi should have played instead of coquelin and we would’ve won
Genuinely sorry for the mugs who keep paying for arsenal season tickets and get this type of team selection and performance.
If i was an arsenal payer tonight, i would apologise and ask my team to refund every person ticket that came today. We were lucky away, and were lucky tonight. Should have lost 5-1 tonight.
Well shit. A whole 90 minutes & Giroud or Walcott can’t score a goal! I was playing darts & everytime I looked it was in the opponent’s half…. crap
Embarrassing performance! Should have easily have lost tonight. Walcott is a disgrace! Cannot stay on side, or do anything! When we look back at shocking things in Arsenal’s history, one of them will be how did Walcott last so long at the club?
As much I love getting our players rotation, I find that it has backfired recently, having add the Sanchez, Ozil saga still unclear. Theres too many mini problems at Arsenal, this season has not been the typical Arsenal perfomances I’ve seen. Lets remain positive and hope things will gel faster before christmas.
Two poor sides played one very poor game. If Boakye had played better at two golden opportunities, we would have easily been losers.
The number of empty seats says it all. It’s hard for me to find anything positive.
You are so negative in such a way that you’ll blame the recent graduates, who have done well so far. Negativity is killing you guys. These guys didnt lose the game and we qualified to the next round, whats the fuss? Dont be so negative guys
He needs to go back to making tackles, braking up play and stop thinking he’s an attacking midfielder
Coquelin needs to go back to making tackles, braking up play and stop thinking he’s an attacking midfielder
Coquelin needs to go back to making tackles, breaking up play and stop thinking he’s an attacking midfielder
I am getting fed up with the idiots that do nothing but complaining all the time. Get over it. The players are decent but have no coach that can get the best of them.
Are you really watching the games? You all drool about Nelson but have you really seen how many times Thro was an excellent position and he didn’t pass the ball to him.
Get through your thick heads that the problem is not the players, it is the coach!
Not a horrible result, all things considered, but hardly inspiring. How many chances are we going to flub this season? Seriously. We could have realistically had some 6-8 goal matches this season with all the chance created if not for some nightmare-inducing failures to finish (25 years on I will still have vivid memories or dreams of the times I botched a chance from youth and middle school teams, if I was an Arsenal striker I would probably be having regular fever dreams) plus a good bit of brilliant goalkeeping by opposing teams.