Soccer Champions League

Buying Into the Hype Costs Arsenal As Monaco Ease To Victory

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Arsenal winger Alexis Sanchez after a Monaco goal

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The hype before kick-off surrounding the second round Champions League tie between Arsenal and AS Monaco turned out to be perfectly accurate on the day. The game was a mismatch, as one team was clearly better than the other and the tie is almost over ahead of the return leg in three week’s time. However, the dominant team in the game was actually Monaco and not Arsenal, as the Ligue 1 outfit left North London with an emphatic 3-1 victory.

The game not only showed how superior Monaco were technically, tactically and physically, but mentally as well, as they performed with a sense of urgency, desire and belief that their Premier League opponents severely lacked. The French side played like they had a point to prove; Arsenal, on the other hand, played like they had spent the week listening to the pregame hype of how they had a free ride into the next round.

There is never a free ride into the advancing round of any competition though – the only free ride is via the exit door. And now, that is exactly what is facing the Gunners after this debacle. Arsenal needed to stamp their authority on this game and achieve a convincing win in order to simplify the second leg for themselves, but the display the team offered up was never going to be good enough to get that particular job done.

The players lacked in all areas, from mental focus, to tactical discipline, to technical quality, to physical effort. It was a clean sweep of deficiency and the club’s fans have every right to show their displeasure in the aftermath. Arsene Wenger obviously plays a large role in preparing the players in all aspects as the manager of the team, but if a player needs motivating for a game of this magnitude, then he’s in the wrong business anyway.

The players just didn’t perform, and the first Monaco goal justifiably arrived after 38 minutes, but even that didn’t serve as a wake-up call to the home team. The dour performance continued in the second half, and Monaco eventually clinched a second goal after 53 minutes. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain managed to give the Gunners a potential lifeline by bringing the score back to 2-1, and that result would have been like a win considering how poor Arsenal had played.

But it wasn’t meant to be, as the home team got what they deserved, and just as deservedly, Monaco got what they deserved as the away team made it 3-1 in injury time. It’s a result which was no less than both teams deserved, and one which leaves the Gunners staring down the barrel ahead of the return leg in the principality next month.

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