After Arsenal beat the Bulgarian Champions 6-0 at the Emirates, everyone thought that the return at Ludogrets would be a walk in the park. Arsene Wenger made quite a few changes to the starting line-up and the Gunners were shocked to find themselves 2-0 down after just 15 minutes of the game.
Wenger denied that he took it easy before the game. “No, we did not come here to produce less effort.” Le Prof said. “Ludogorets even pushed us to produce more effort because we had to give a lot to win the game. Ludogorets is a strong team for me. Sometimes in life you don’t know how good you are, and Ludogorets at the moment doesn’t know how good they are. Maybe they’ll come back next season and learn, they have learned a lot, and they will come back with the same team and make very good results.”
Be that as it may, the fact is that Arsenal finally took all three points thanks to Mesut Ozil’s last gasp solo effort, and Wenger has now guided his team into the knockout stages for the 17th season in a row, but he admits his aim now is to finish top of the Group ahead of PSG. He said after the game: “I believe that the most difficult thing in life is to be consistent at the top level and so it shows that we have been quite consistent there and that we could do it again this season and hopefully we can go further. Now we have a game where we can finish top of the group, at home, and let’s maintain the quality of our results until the game against Paris Saint-Germain and then we are in a good position to finish top of the group.”
We now have three weeks to prepare for the visit of the French Champions, but before that we have the small matter of Tottenham and Man United to take care of. If we can win those two we will face PSG at the top of our confidence, and hopefully top the Group as well….
Onwards and Upwards!
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