It was another of those nights where Arsenal played a perfect European away game but came away at the wrong end of a knockout result. We all in a way knew that Arsenal were going to win on the night but the more crucial aspect was to see if the Gunners could score 3 UN-answered goals.
As it turned out Arsenal could only defeat Monaco by 2-0 and ended up paying heavy price for their dismal performance in the first leg.
Arsene Wenger accepted the overall result gracefully and stressed on taking out the positives from the night rather than reflecting on the disappointment of getting knocked out at Round of 16 phase for the fifth season in a row.
Wenger accepted Arsenal had just left themselves too much to do after their “suicidal” defending in London. Arsenal manager said:
“I felt the performance was enough tonight, but it was a very difficult task,”
“If you look at the numbers, we had a 98 per cent 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.
“Monaco played at home, have zero shots on target and yet go to the quarter-final.”
Arsenal gave themselves a brilliant chance of going through when Aaron Ramsey scored the second goal near the 80’minute mark. With 10 minutes remaining and 1 goal needed to complete the fairy tale, odds were in Arsenal’s favors as they were the dominating the play at that time.
Wenger went on to say: “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 the two games, they were well rewarded, and were very clinical.
“They really surprised us in the first leg when we were too sure of ourselves on the night.”
Arsenal manager was less than pleased from the ref on the night who had booked Alexis Sanchez for diving when replays clearly showed that the Chilean was fouled in the box and Arsenal should have been awarded the penalty.
Wenger said: “I felt the referee had a very poor first half personally. I just told him that I was not happy with some decisions.”
Arsene Wenger vowed to take the positives from his side’s performance on the night and looked to assess their season at the end of their Premier League and FA Cup campaign. Wenger said:
“I am realistic enough to know every season is different. Judge our season at the end of the season,”
“Tonight I don’t believe we had a disappointing performance, it was a positive performance and you can take that into the end of the season.”
The result on the night meant that Monaco would enter their first Champions League Quarter-final since they won the whole thing in 2003-04 season under Jose Mourinho.
Quotes Credits: SkySport