I am not going to disagree with some of the points made by Arsene Wenger after Arsene Wenger lost 5-1 to Bayern Munich in the Champions League (AGAIN) because the Frenchman was right to pour scorn on some of the decisions made by the Greek referee and his unusually involved team of assistants at the Emirates Stadium.
Yes we should have had a penalty for a first half foul on Theo Walcott that could have seen us two up at the break. The fact he was going away from goal or that his touch may have taken the ball too far should not matter a bit. He was fouled and it should have been a spot kick to Arsenal.
The penalty that Bayern got was soft in the extreme as well as Lewandowski was looking for it and threw himself after bumping Koscielny and to change his mind and send our defender off after initially showing yellow was strange and unfair in the extreme, so there I have sympathy for Wenger.
But all of that is really just sugar coating and does not hide the fact once again the Gunners collapsed under pressure. The boss suggested that chasing a four goal deficit with a man down was a major factor in the heavy defeat but it was another collapse in Munich that put us in that position in the first place.
We also lost to the same team by the same scoreline in last season’s group stage so you can see there is a pattern forming and no amount of talking about a poor night from the officials is going to cut much sway with the Arsenal fans who have to bear this sort of pain on a regular basis.
Bob.