Arsene Wenger admits his team were sucker punched by Dortmund as they tried to win the game, when they should probably have settled for a point.
The Gunners were hit on the break, and by Robert Lewandowski’s late winner, as they looked for a second goal, leaving the Arsenal manager frustrated.
“We lost the game because we maybe wanted so much to win it that we forgot that if you cannot win it, don’t lose it. That’s what is most annoying because we put a lot of effort in.
“We just forgot to be cautious. We were not cautious enough and we paid for it.
“It was a game of high intensity but very few chances. Dortmund were well organised to stop us from playing, and I must says as well that we were not as good as we can be offensively.
“Some of our players were not as fresh as they were recently. But we put ourselves on the back foot with the first goal and naive for the second goal.”
But despite the defeat, Wenger was looking for the positives, saying his team would learn from what transpired.
“A disappointment like that is part of what makes a team grow. I feel that some players, physically, are a bit jaded at the moment and it is a bit down recovering physically.”
Wenger’s men have now to pick themselves up ahead of the weekend’s trip to Crystal Palace at the weekend.
Up the Arsenal! We’ll get through this stronger than ever!
Very tight but good game. Either team could have win it in my opinion. Congrats to Dortmund; bear in mind there is still a second game. If they can win here, we can as well win in Germany (cf last season…)
We’ll have Flamini back then.. And I bet he’s seen Lewandowski smack Koscielny…
Hard luck boys. Few mistakes led to easy goals, definitely deserved a point – however given that before the season A LOT of outsiders said they wouldn’t even see us get out of the group, so 6 points atm isn’t THAT BAD but still disappointed after our 2nd half performance and so far this season. Koscielny and Per >
Pick ourselves up and move on; next is Crystal Palace, don’t really need to add more to that to be honest löl.
Can’t help but admire the way Wenger continuously backs his players. Unlike Losé Mourinho.
Good effort today lads, lets show Chelsea, Utd, Liverpool and Dortmund what we’re like at full capacity. This was a learning experience, and luck wasn’t on our side today. Onwards and upwards (oh wait, I forgot we’re at the top of the table)
CLeague will only be settled when we push through the second leg of games – We’ve lost the hardest away match by far, and taken points from the other 2 teams, this is hardly a bad position. It’s on us to put pressure on the Dortmund for the next game, COYG
we played at home mate
Says something about the home support, doesn’t it?
Not at our best at all but still could of walked away with all 3 points.
If we can up our game in Germany we can put the sword Dortmund. Don’t think we have much to fear from them.
Flamini will be kicking people into outer space…can’t wait.
missed him badly tonight , potentially would have helped the defence snuff out there winner. Arteta just jogged back aimlessly ala Denilson
Watch when gibbs goes for the throw in ref realises a goal might be on, looks at his watch and blows for fulltime some seconds early. refs arent immune to favouritsm/bias and from this match it’s clear he had it in for us.
Crystal palace over the weekend is just what the doctor order
Onwards and upwards lets take our disappointment out on Palace.
Fuck Spurs.
We missed Flamini. Rosicky and Giroud were terric
I thought rocky gave the ball away way to much and his passing was off
i think you have confused rosicky with wilshere
Shame. There were some touches of magic there but BD really are a terrific team. So well disciplined. Good experience for us but I think we could get a win over there too
Coyg! Remember when we lost to bayern at home and then came back at them and nearly kick them out of CL last season ? Arsenal all the way!
Bad day. But the fact spurs are playing a team called sheriff at 6 o clock this thursday makes things slightly rosier.
Disappointed!:-( Gutted!;-> Hope Palace pay for it nd we go on to crush Dortmund in the reverse fixture. Better luck gunners!
Thumbs up guys,so happy we are all behind our team.The lad gave it their all,it just didn’t go our way today.I believe we will come out of this stronger.
Arsenal missed Flamini and Walcott today. I believe that Wenger should have removed Wilshere after the first half and bring in Gynabry to pin down the defense of Dortmund. I hope Walcott will be available for the return leg. With Walcott in, Ozil can come central and dictate the game from there. We will surely beat them in the reverse game.
I agree with you Victor. We need cover for Flamini as well as Walcott and Gnarbry to supply the crossess. Ramsey being ramsey is best as offensive midfield raoming and scoring not defending. We must play to our strength. Players must learn to defend and control the ball when we need to play for a draw sometime instead of too gungho going for a win. Need to maintain concentration for the entire game.
Both team played well, anyone could’ve clinched the points. Their tactics were simple, wait for us to either make a mistake or wait for us to push and exploit the gaps. Agree with AW, we were just a little naive defensively.
I wonder when midfielders will learn not to do anything fancy around our own box. Ramsey today, Cesc did it against Barca with the back heel, etc. sometimes you just have to get rid!
We soooo missed Flamini tonight… Both their goals were on his patch and he would have snuffed those chances out.
Not bothered at all
I must admit I didn’t like hearing the ITV pundits saying we didn’t deserve to win it. I get that Dortmund were canny in playing for a counter-attack goal, but for me the team that is trying to attack and break down the defense is the team that deserves to win. If we had done what Dortmund did, it would have been a very dull game. I’m not slating them for doing it, it was clearly effective, but for me if either team deserved it it was us. Secondly, the ref was a dick. Not an Anthony Taylor here’s-the-three-points-you-ordered-Aston-Villa-level dick,… Read more »
Now all we have to do is make influx of changes for the palace game.. Ramsey,ozil,jack,giroud,gibbs,koscielny,sczesney,sagna all need some rest, Jenkinson,monreal,fabianski,vermaelen,bendtner,gnabry should all start vs palace so we stay fresh for the chelsea game in the coc, i would’nt wana lose to chelsea at home not for any reason.. Just have to say.. It looked like the foul given for a push when we scored the disallowed goal was a wrong call.. I think it was a dortmund player pushing his own team mate realy! You can check the replay. But like klopp said.. He had a good feeling about… Read more »
We didn’t deserve to lose but mother luck was not on our side, on any other day i think sczesney would have somehow saved that lewandowski’s strike..it looked to me like a goal he can save though i’m not trying to criticise our keeper but i think he should have done better. I’m i worried that we failed our first big test according to those silly *porndicks* ??? My answer is a No! For all i care this was our 4th big test of the season behind the fenerbace home and away game, tottenham at home and napoli in the… Read more »
Even if we beat real madrid today and a day after tomorrow we beat barcelona those silly Tv *porndicks* would still come up with the irrelevant [Arsenal still yet to face their biggest task of the season] Line. Guess the task would be palace then. Coyg! Forget the insignificant *porndicks* and lets take it one game at a time, i believe in this team. I’m just trying to raise our spirits here, we shouldnt give up or criticise the team just after one unfortunate defeat we should be very impressed with the way we played our suppose biggest tests/runners up.… Read more »
This loss is a very important ingredient, part of the learning curve for a team aspiring to win and equally an important foundation for a young core with no experience of winning.
well that was a sucker punch indeed but we should have done better, a little bit rabbit-in-headlights in the first half, we seemed a bit intimidated which was silly. the only decent cross we put in led to a goal and we cut them open several times and got in behind just fine. grounds for optimism when we go to theirs. on another subject, the dortmund fans… odd! was like an episode of germany’s got talent, looked like they were there to sing and dance rather than watch a football match. there were about two minutes when they appeared to… Read more »
Their drummers were rather irritating. I don’t mind away fans out singing us (except for when we sing Giroud!), but the incessant got on my tits…
A word on the fans, tonight was my first ever Arsenal game and I was curious to see just how supposedly dull the atmosphere inside the Emirates is supposed to be. I have to say, there are some fans who didn’t sit down all game and sang till their throats were inside out. While drenched in rain walking back to the station, after a disappointing defeat, Arsenal fans STILL chanted with a great passion. I was impressed. But, there was a considerable minority of fans who got up and left after Lewandowski’s goal, I find that disgraceful, personally. Not only… Read more »
“Wenger’s men have now to pick themselves up ahead of the weekend’s trip to Crystal Palace at the weekend”
…. Thank God, I was worried the “weekend trip” to crystal palace might be on monday
It shows how important Flamini is to Arsenal.
I certainly agree. If we had Flamini tonight, he would of been covering Sagna’s right back position when he pushed forward to leave Lewy free for the goal. Oh well, onwards and upwards.
We were gonna lose a game eventually, and i think it’ll keep our feet on the ground. Good thing is, this was a game that we could (arguably) afford to lose. Better than dropping 3 points in the League.
We won’t crash and burn from this loss.
Perhaps we should have held back a little and hit them on the break when we got the equalizer. Just not in our nature I suppose.
Good effort. Learn the lessons and hit them back next week in germany.
Players jaded? Come on. I can accept that Ozil, Ramsey and Giroud have played too many for club and country but the others were to lesser degree or more free during international break.
Sagna, Santi, Rosicky, Arteta were not called up for intl. break. Gibbs, Wilshere were called up but didn’t get too much game time. Per, Kos, Szcz played only 1 of the 2 games.
And this was only the second match after the international break. What would happen when we play United?
Depressed and all that but really, truly liked the spirit of this team…..
Win more, now!!!!!!
Up the Arsenal!
those guys never gave us a space to operate in the midfield. they closed us down there and our fullbacks weren’t getting decent crosses in as well safe for our equalizer
Tight game, had Koscielny not fouled their player, Ramsey would have had a goal.. As well as Cazorla hitting the crossbar. Could have gone epithet way.. Next game is ours!
Spot on, could have gone either way.
I think we need some natural width, cos right now our fullbacks are providing width and without a natural holding midfielder, w’ll continue to get exposed on counter. Gnabry is the only fit wide man we have so he has to feature a bit more imo.
Flamini is proving to be an astute signing but it also worries me cos what will happen if he gets injured again or suspended?!?!
“epithet” way?
Damn you, autocorrect!
Might not be a popular opinion on here to criticise Arsene, but while agreeing with his assessment, why didn’t he try to sort it from the touchline – screaming at Gibbs and Sagna to stay back and let the midfield attack, instead of everyone being caught upfield in a “naive” (his word) situation? Think we have to target Naples as the place to pick up 3 points, and of course beat Marseille. I was hoping they’d do us a favour by getting at least a point against Napoli last night at home, but they didn’t. Don’t think Dortmund will be… Read more »
@Ohms – you made me laugh, thinking about our stewards letting in flares, drums and loudspeakers and creating flag type Ultra areas. We’re only allowed the official 2 flags per end, waved by official Arsenal flagwavers.
Don’t agree about drums and loudhailers; German fans drive me nuts with those. More flags would be great.
Flares are dangerous mate.