Arsenal Collapsed Embarrassingly

Match Review: Arsenal 3 Anderlecht 3 - Champions League - 04.11.14

Tuesday night was one of those nights that makes you wonder why on earth you bother following football. After an hour, Arsenal were cruising through to the knockout stages, but half an hour later, we were stunned and embarrassed. Throwing away a three goal lead at home is something that would humiliate a pub side, but somehow we contrived to capitulate against the side that most thought was the weakest in the group.

Wenger made just the one change from the weekend win against Burnley, dropping the out of form Flamini and bringing Ramsey in. Straight away you could see we were playing 4-4-2 again, with Welbeck and Alexis forming the front two and Cazorla and Chamberlain out wide. However, while the attack was doing a good job of creating chances and testing the Anderlecht back line,the defence was all over the place. Anderlecht have a number of lightning quick players like Cyriac and they caused us some huge problems on the break. With everyone but Mertesacker, Monreal and Arteta pushing forward, it left us exposed and with only one of those three possessing any quickness, it was a worry. There was even a moment before our first goal where Szczesny was forced into making an excellent save to stop us going behind.

Despite our deficiencies at the back, it was Arsenal that opened the scoring. It came from a lovely ball from Alexis, looking to send Welbeck through. Welbeck tussled with Mbemba and the Anderlecht defender eventually dragged him down, resulting in a penalty. Alexis seemed very keen to take the spot kick, but Arteta pulled rank and stroked the penalty high into the net. The goal seemed to settle things down a bit for us, but for Alexis, the penalty snub seemed to have sent him into a fury…

An angry Alexis is seriously bad news for the opposition and so it proved, as the Chilean picked up the ball in his own half and took off, storming past Anderlecht players until one finally managed to bring him down and concede a free kick. After having the penalty taken away, no-one was getting the ball off Sanchez for the free kick, but his effort rebounded off the wall. Unfortunately for Anderlecht, it fell perfectly for Alexis to hammer a volley into the bottom right hand corner. Another stunning effort from a player who seems to be thriving as the main man at the club. He’s quickly becoming a fan favourite and is playing sensational football at the moment.

A two nil lead at half time would seem to be a safe and comfortable position in a home game. It got even better when Chamberlain, who is just starting to find form, produced a moment of magic to supposedly put the game to bed. The winger brilliantly won the ball back ten yards from the Anderlecht penalty area and then showed ridiculous pace to race past the defence before finishing beautifully into the far corner. For Chamberlain, that will be a huge confidence boost having struggled at the beginning of the season. He’s now looking like he could start providing a serious attacking threat to go with our other outstanding options.

3-0 should always be pretty much game over, especially at home. However, we have form in terms of collapsing embarrassingly from commanding positions and this particular episode began very soon after Chamberlain’s goal. During the celebrations, Arteta came over to the bench to ask for a substitution. It caught the bench off guard and as the game restarted, Arteta was visibly irritated with how long it was taking to get Flamini ready. Whether this distracted the rest of the team or they just switched off I don’t know, but Anderlecht got down the left hand side, Chambers failed to stop the cross and Anthony Vanden Borre was in the middle to tap in. He looked offside, but I haven’t seen a definitive replay. In essence it was just a stupid goal that we should have prevented. It also should have been a mere consolation, but again, it wasn’t.

Nacho Monreal has done his absolute best to fill in at centre back and I think he’s actually surprised a few with some tenacious performances. But this time he was exposed. Anderlecht brought on Mitrovic, a powerful, physical centre forward and Monreal couldn’t deal with him. The make shift centre back grappled with and ended up pulling down Mitrovic as a cross came in. It looked a dubious penalty, but the ref was convinced and gave Monreal a yellow for his troubles. Vanden Borre was again the man to put the ball into the net and suddenly things were very uncomfortable.

Wenger’s response to this alarming turnaround was a baffling pair of substitutions, as Podolski replaced Welbeck at centre forward and Rosicky came on for Chamberlain. We also converted to a 4-4-1-1 as Cazorla switched to the centre and Alexis went out to the left. With options like Bellerin for a defensive change and also Walcott available to give them another threat to think about, it seemed strange and right at the end of the game, it came back and bit us hard. Podolski and Gibbs initially did the right thing, with Gibbs dropping off to cover the overlapping attacker and Podolski staying with the man with the ball. Unfortunately Podolski didn’t bother actually closing down the man on the ball and he whipped in a cross to the near post. There, Mitrovic stung us again, this time beating Mertesacker to a diving header at the near post and levelling the game up in the 90th minute.

A game which should have ended in the team leaving the pitch to applause and a place in the last sixteen instead ended in boos and the knowledge that we will almost certainly finish second in the group and face a group winner in the last sixteen. The inevitable draw against Bayern or Barcelona awaits and an early exit from a tournament that we haven’t had a decent hope of winning since the semi final against United in 2009. At the moment we just go through the motions, get eliminated and pick up the money for fourth place at the end of the season. For Arsenal it isn’t good enough. We are going to find it increasingly difficult to get deeper into the competition as we continually shoot ourselves in the foot. Granted the draws recently have been unkind, but last year we could have won the group but messed it up and this year, we’re settling for second with two games left. Arsenal simply aren’t a major player in the Champions League and that doesn’t look like changing any time soon.

Teams

Arsenal (4-4-2)
Szczesny, Chambers, Mertesacker, Monreal (Y), Gibbs, Arteta (Flamini 62’), Ramsey, Chamberlain (Rosicky 81’), Cazorla, Alexis, Welbeck (Podolski 82’)
Subs
Martinez, Bellerin, Rosicky, Podolski, Flamini, Walcott, Sanogo

Anderlecht (4-5-1)
Proto, Vanden Borre (Y), Mbemba Mangulu (Dendoncker 54’), Deschacht, Acheampong, Kljestan (Y), Tielemans, Najar, Praet, Conte (Kawaya 45’), Cyriac (Mitrovic 62' (Y))
Subs
Colin, Heylen, Dendoncker, Roef, Kawaya, Kabasele, Mitrovic

Player Ratings

Szczesny - 7/10 - Couldn’t really do much about any of the goals and made a good save
Chambers - 6/10 - Struggled when Anderlecht doubled up on him with pace
Mertesacker - 6/10 - Hasn’t been at his best and shouldn’t have been beaten for their 3rd
Monreal - 6/10 - Has done his best at centre back, but he just isn't cut out for it
Gibbs - 6/10 - A decent game
Arteta - 7/10 - Had a great game up until his injury
Ramsey - 5/10 - He’s all over the place at the moment and needs to calm his game down
Chamberlain - 7/10 - Showed lightening pace, trickery and scored a great goal
Cazorla - 6/10 - Didn’t have much influence and I don’t think 4-4-2 suits him
Alexis - 8/10 - A cut above the rest again and thank goodness he is
Welbeck - 7/10 - Just needs a goal, he’s looking dangerous and he will come good
Subs
Flamini - 5/10 - Can’t be blamed for everything, but he’s in very poor form
Rosicky - 6/10 - Not sure why he was brought on, but didn’t have much of an impact
Podolski - 5/10 - Followed a good cameo with a poor one and it cost us

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