Arsenal started the game last night in lively fashion, and Atletico seemed to have a policy of hacking down our players at every opportunity so it was little surprise that they went down to ten men so quickly.
But after that the Spanish side spent most of the time defending like hell, and according to Arsene Wenger, it didn’t help us at all, despite having the lions share of possession. “Yeah, it’s frustrating.” the Boss said. “We had not to force it. We were 1-0 up and the second goal could have come even in the last five minutes.
“You have to stay 1-0 up and after that, everything is open. They are a team who defend well, we know that. They have one of the best defensive records in Europe, you could see tonight that’s no coincidence. But we had the chances. Once they were down to 10 men, it destroyed a bit the flow of the game and it was not to our advantage.”
I think it was a big advantage myself and with the amount of chances we created we should have put the game to bed many times, but instead we gave away a soft goal and now have a mountain to climb in the second leg. At least Wenger is under no illusions what we have to do next week in the return leg. “The only advantage of that result is we know exactly what we have to do over there. We have nothing to lose. We have to go there and really play to win the game.”
Maybe we can go down to ten men and make it harder for Atletico next week!
Darren N