Arsenal vs Bayern (A), Wednesday 20h00 GMT, Champs League QF: Page 22 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Arsenal vs Bayern (A), Wednesday 20h00 GMT, Champs League QF

Gazza M

goon nope. disappointed we didn't make better fist of it, but not gutted. the more pressing concern is how the team looks in the second half of games.

daredevil

Clrnc

Bayern are comfortably better than Dortmund, Atletico and us, and are atleast as good as PSG and Barcelona. Your assessment is wrong, and you sound like that ESPN journalist Steve Nicol.

This argument that we should be beating Bayern because they are at their worst in 20 years whilst we are at our best is ignorant of the levels that exist between us. Bayern at their best is a double winning CL champion, Bayern at their worst is a team in the semi finals of the CL and will finish second in the Bundesliga. Hardly a fall.

Arsenal at our worst is a team finishing 8th and missing out on Europe altogether, whilst Arsenal at our best in recent years is a team finishing second and ending the season empty handed. As much as the gap has closed, there's still a gap between us and you have to be blind to not see it.

Clrnc

daredevil Go look at the draw thread. Most of us didn't want Atleti because we predict they will Porto us. PSG and Barcelona this season is slightly stronger than Bayern IMO, but I won't disagree if you said they are similar. All 3 teams have weaknesses that might have suited us. I disagree about Dortmund in particular. I watched Bundesliga quite a bit and even though Dortmund struggled and lost a lot of games at the start of the season because of their squad upheaval, they hit top form past coupled of months after Terzic found a settled first XI. It's not a surprise they went to Allianz and outplayed Bayern winning 2-0 just 2 weeks ago. Also not a surprise they walloped Atleti yesterday, who hasn't conceded 4 goals for god knows how long in CL. I think we had the luck of the draw, we didn't draw the toughest or biggest teams in these 2 rounds unlike the past. The fact that we made a meal out of a Porto team that most of the other big boys would have put away easily does not change this fact.

Anyway regardless of that, over the 2 legs what we have seen of Bayern is a team that is extremely beatable, but we did not take our chances when presented. We also made critical errors in the first leg and we setup wrongly in the 2nd leg. All of these are within our control. I did not see a team that is better than us over 2 legs.

We have played Bayern many times by now, and tbh yesterday felt like a big chance missed. It felt similar in 04-05 when we lost our marginally to them due to Toure's error despite being the better team over both legs. It's not like those times when we got thumped by them a felt worlds apart. Like what many said above, the way we went out left a lot to be desired.

goon Feels worse than Villa tbh, Villa was much better and we were outplayed. I didn't feel we could win the title anyway looking at the remaining fixtures, but in CL we are 2 more games away from Wembley.

flobaba Basically this. Spot on. We beat ourselves, nothing to do with Bayern's supposed quality.

This is the recent Bayern pedigree for their current group of players before we gifted them 2 goals at home.

flobaba

This is so dumb. It's a cup competition, over two legs. At worst, we are two evenly matched sides. The bookies had us favorites going into the quarters, and now all of a sudden, Bayern is the second coming of peak Barcelona. We played the occasion, and fell short. We were tactically 2nd best over both games, and were punished ruthlessly for mistakes in the first leg, but this was by no means an unwinnable tie. And this Bayern team is really nothing special.

The problem here was us, not them.

QuincyAbeyie

flobaba the funny thing is that even in our banter era we were disappointed to go out to peak Barcelona. We're now vastly superior to back then, facing a team vastly inferior to peak Barcelona, and still even people who thought we would win before the match are acting like us going out was set in stone.

daredevil

flobaba

This is home bias. You are looking at narratives and bookies that are English and therefore PL centric/biased who have Man City as CL favourites every bloody season. And you've oblivious to the fact that in Germany, Bayern were expected to qualify and their draw at the Emirates was not a surprise result to Germans which Jurgen Klinsmann was at pains to point out.

The odds for Bayern to qualify were so favourable, I couldn't resist taking the bet, even though I'm not a betting man.

goon

Bayern are better than suggested, especially tactically. We're not as good as we thought, especially technically.

flobaba

We are better than what we showed over the two legs. We have beaten City in the league, bested Liverpool as well. We know this was not us at our best. Unless you’re saying it is. In that case, I’m not going to waste another moment discussing this nonsense.

goon

flobaba

Definitely not, especially in the first leg. If we don't make those defensive errors we probably go through.

But going forward I think we've been lacking in big games. We got 4 points out of City this season but it was on the back of defensive masterclasses and a deflected goal from outside the box. It looks like to me we're only good going forward when we can camp in the oppositions final third and get in there over and over again. At this level, you need to be clinical and efficient. because you're not going to get that.

USArsenal

As much as the loss hurts, and believe me, it does, we went out in the QF's of the Champions League, a place that we have not been in well over a decade. None of the players (Jesus and Havertz aside) have been here before. We had almost no experience on this stage, no matter how good of a team we have been.

We lost to a Bayern team that, albeit not their best this season, had bags of experience and won the Bundesliga for i can't remember how many years in a row. On paper, were we the better team? Perhaps. On the pitch were we the better team? Nope, it was pretty even. we lost the tie 3-2. It's a learning experience. City had year after year of disappointment until finally winning last year, and they had vastly superior teams than ours. We are getting there, and we need a couple key additions this summer. (We all know the positions we need).

It all matters how we respond against Wolves now. We need to get back into 'fight for our life' mode in the EPL.

Clrnc

daredevil The odds for Bayern to qualify were so favourable, I couldn't resist taking the bet, even though I'm not a betting man.

The odds maker are not English bias either.

goon absolutely which is why I had issue with people who said we are at city and Madrid level by claiming we got 4 points off them . It was a facade if you just look at the surface

GooneriC

Bayern were nothing. We were shit up front . That's why we are out.

QuincyAbeyie

When people tell me they know much better than the bookies, they just aren't billionaires because they don't want to, I tend to stop listening. Same with stock "experts".

Claudius

Been on a walk listening to the Arsecast, enjoyable show. Balanced discussion A few quotes I found interesting, and I paraphrase..

James: "I was talking to Sam Dean from the Telegraph and he said 'Arsenal are the better team, but Bayern have the better players'"

Andrew on Arteta's fringe players, particularly Vieira, Nelson, etc., "There are some questionable decisions that have led to some of these situations."

Andrew on the need for a superstar "This is a squad based on collectivism... but maybe we could use some individualism.. a guy who could just fuck one in from 30 yards (like Alexis Sanchez)"

Thought all of these were good points. The second statement points to what @Qwiss was saying earlier, but I think we need to solve it by addressing the third statement. Replace the bottom of the pyramid with new players at the top. We need more players the manager will want to use. No sense getting some guys who will sit on the bench picking their arse hairs.

Qwiss

Claudius Andrew on the need for a superstar "This is a squad based on collectivism... but maybe we could use some individualism.. a guy who could just fuck one in from 30 yards (like Alexis Sanchez)"

This one is the one I agree with most. And what James said about needing an Alexis type. I'm in two minds as to whether Arteta could turn a young Alexis into a superstar of it he'd just get fed up of him. He has the energy, the will to win and the stamina to play our pressing game. Would Arteta be able to solves the turnovers before he lost patience though?

Claudius

Qwiss last year he dealt with Zinchenko and Partey's turnovers. This year our play is much more conservative. Fans' reactions to these players is partly off a baseline of our security this season. But we have had risky players. Saka himself loses the ball a lot as he tries to create (he's 45th percentile for quality of pass completion and take-ons versus other wingers). I think as long as a player is productive and hardworking, losses will be tolerated.

awooga83

That's my question for Arteta's next progression can he accept a player like that who is primarily there to make the difference at the top end and you might have to accept he's not quite what you naturally want in your players with that defensive discipline.

MistaT

I struggle to see Arteta implementing a player like that, as he’s done plenty to neuter our player most like that (Martinelli).

invisibleman18

goon I always expected the outcome. But am more gutted at the manner of the performance coupled with the Villa game. We look out of steam and ideas and I fear it confirms another April collapse. Based on the last 3 games and what keeps happening at this stage of the season, I don't see us being able to get anything out of this weekend's game either.

Burnwinter

This match was played at 3am my local time during an extremely hectic week (finished renovating my Perth house in order to re-let it and move back north, multiple client deadlines etc).

As a result, I watched this with one eye open and barely awake, and it was fucking miserable viewing. I have to say, few things suck worse than waking up to watch a massively important football match in the witching hour and then it's a dull, scunnering 1–0 loss to a bunch of Bavarian cunts (stadium fans more than the players) plus Harry Kane …

The loss is gonna mean that unless we win the league, I will not be truly overjoyed by this season. At the moment, it is another "nearly" season with nothing this Arsenal generation can honestly hang its hat on.

That said, and with the great benefit of a few days' hindsight, when you look at how we got sharked in the first leg, I'm proud of how we got back into that match after some stupid errors. We also didn't acquit ourselves too badly in Munich. It wasn't embarrassing. From the kickoff I could feel how daunting the Allianz atmosphere was and I feared a bad outcome.

As Arteta put it in his post match presser, we don't have the "magic" needed for this stage. Last summer's signings were the opposite of magic men—however good they are, we signed all the anti-magic blokes. I am not fixated on any one solution, but I want Arsenal to sign a player with mad technique, weapons and mentality this summer who will be a natural forward starter alongside Saka.

Meanwhile, watching City go out despite dominating Madrid at the Etihad was a salutary reminder of how fucked up this whole competition is. We may need more than a few bites at the cherry to get off our zero European championships.

Anyway, we've got a new knockout format now—win all our remaining league matches and see what happens.

I was really, really proud of our second half versus Wolves last night—which I watched while blind drunk, again at 4am, after drinking my last mate under the table at my house-cooling. I deeply appreciated how much was involved for our guys in ratcheting up pressure on dead legs more or less just two days after this. Yeah, it was two halves of frustratingly long waits for an actual goal, but it was an excellent win.

I see plenty of little reasons and narratives to keep on hoping City trip up if we get past Chelsea, so let's fucking go do that.

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