There is no nice way to describe Arsenal’s dire performance against the Swedish minnows Ostersunds, especially at the Emirates in front of our own fans. If we had lost in Sweden we could have blamed the plastic pitch or the frozen pitch, but back in London there is no excuse possible.
Jack Wilshere, who was hardly showered in glory, admitted that the team were rubbish. “We were nowhere near good enough,” Wilshere said. “We proved ourselves a little bit in the second half but we still weren’t good enough.
“We’re through and that’s all that counts. We’ll see who we get in the draw. We have a big game on Sunday so now we have to focus on that.
“When you’re 3-0 up in two-legged games you still have to go again. We knew it was only half-time and they have quality and wanted to play.
“We underestimated them a little bit. But the main thing is we’re through. We know we weren’t good enough, we’ll accept that and move on.
“The only positive is we’re through. We showed better character in the second half, we came out and had a bit of a go but it wasn’t good enough. You can’t start a game like that and expect to compete at this level.
“Ostersund have quality and deserve to be in this tournament as much as we do. We know that and we can take that into the next game. If it’s a lesser team we have to focus more.”
Arsenal definitely deserve to be in this competition, as they would have been destroyed by ANY team in the Champions League knockouts. The ONLY consolation we can take is that we have got through to the next round withoutany of our top players suffering from fatigue after playing three days earlier. If ANY of last night’s team plays on Sunday I will be very annoyed!
Darren N