When Monaco knocked Arsenal out of Europe last time out
Arsenal will come up against AS Monaco on Wednesday night in the Champions League for the first time in nearly a decade.
On the previous occasion the French side knocked Arsene Wenger’s Gunners out of the Champions League during the round of 16 in the 2014/15 season wickedly.
After a surprise 1-3 defeat at the Emirates in the first leg Arsenal had to win by three goals to overcome Leonardo Jardim’s team over in France.
With Arsenal desperate to overturn their deficit to advance to the Champions League quarter-finals Olivier Giroud flew in the opening goal of the match not long before the break. After Danny Welbeck fed the Frenchman the ball he scored second time round after his original effort was denied by the legs of Danijel Subasic.
In the latter part of the tie almost super sub Theo Walcott slammed the woodwork before the ball fell to Aaron Ramsey, who slotted in the rebound finding the bottom bins.
Despite winning 2-0 Wenger’s bandwagon hadn’t done enough – tied 3-3 on aggregate with AS Monaco winning on away goals.
After the match Wenger admitted that his Gunners were unlucky not to win the tie overall whilst at the same time acknowledging his side had quite the hurdle to overcome:” I felt the performance was enough tonight, but it was a very difficult task.
“If you look at the numbers, we had 98 percent chance to be out, but we did fight and produce the game we wanted.
“At half-time, the game could have been over with the chances we created, overall we pay (for the fact) that in the first game we did not produce the performance we wanted.”
Wenger further said philosophically that his side had to wake up to reality despite claiming victory:”Football is not a fairytale, it is a matter of being realistic and being clinical, maybe a bit lucky as well, maybe that is part of the game.
“If you take a look at the shots on target in two games, they were well rewarded, and were very clinical.”
Monaco who are sat second in Ligue 1, will fancy their chances against Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal knowing full well that they struggled to beat Fulham on Sunday following the gutting 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage.
Liam Harding
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Two important differences between then and now
1. Then it was a knock-out game, now it’s about league points
2. Then there was a certain rule that made away goals “superior” to goals scored at home. Now that rule is no more.
So even if this game were to be a knock-out with the same scoreline after 180 minutes, Arsenal would have had an extra-time chance of going through to the next stage.
Tomorrow, I believe Arsenal will have their revenge and collect the 3 points from the game