Arsene Wenger slammed his side’s defensive naivety after watching Arsenal hand victory to Barcelona with two costly lapses in concentration.
For much of this evening’s encounter, the Gunners executed their game plan – to stifle the visitors by forcing Luis Enrique’s side to play in front of them – well, only to let their guard down in the final 19 minutes just as it looked like they might force an unlikely victory.
First Neymar broke down the left flank and found an unmarked Lionel Messi who broke the deadlock before substitute Mathieu Flamini hauled down the Argentine to concede a penalty that the World Player of the Year calmly slotted past Petr Cech.
Speaking after the game Wenger was clearly irked that his players had thrown caution to the wind when they need to keep their heads,
“Of course I’m disappointed because we put a lot of energy into this game. I felt that we lost at the moment that we looked more capable of winning the game, and we also lost it in a way which we could not afford to give them.
It’s a bit disappointing to give them the goals that we did, especially the first goal. I feel that we were extremely guilty and have no excuses for that goal.
He continued: “We were disciplined defensively but we knew that if we had to keep it at 0-0, we would keep it at 0-0.
“They are better than us, everybody knows that, but I think we could’ve won the game tonight if we kept the discipline until the end. Once again, like against Monaco, exactly the same thing happened. We were caught in exactly the same way.
“Barcelona master all aspects of the game. As soon as you’re in a bad position, one or two players can punish you. We had two or three opportunities to stop the first goal which we didn’t do because I don’t think we had the right response to the situation that our players faced.”
Asked how he’ll treat the second leg the boss accepted that his side are all but out, but insists they’ll still look to achieve a result in the Camp Nou.
“Barcelona are certainly through, 95 per cent, but we want to go there and play. We are Arsenal Football Club and we will not go there to just have no chance. What we want is to focus on our next game. It’s a shame that the players have not got any satisfaction tonight because energy-wise we put absolutely everything in.”
And the common denominator for all of that naivity is….
Sshhh you can’t speak the truth, it may hurt some feelings.
Silly fans?
Who’s out on the pitch allowing those breaks to happen? We’re all for free speech, but sometimes you have to lay the blame at the feet of the players. They carried out their gameplay relatively well for 70 mins and then got spanked by arguably the best front three in the world backed by arguably the best team in the world.
So let’s remember we shouldn’t wring our hands too much. I love Arsenal, like we all do; I think we have it in us to beat Barca, but they’re a better team than us.
When Patrick Vieira was asked what Arsenal Wengers greatest strength was he replied, “the freedom he gives his players to play”. When asked what his greatest weakness was he replied “the freedom he gives his players to play. I honestly believe that is one of the most insightful comments I’ve ever heard about the man. The blame shouldn’t be laid just at the feet of the players.
Shhh, don’t be rational, it hurts people’s feelings.
sometimes i hope arsene can stand up and shout at the players more rather than let them use their intelligence and later on tell us in a post match review how naive the players were…
Did you see him after we conceded the goal? He was going off his head at someone.
Exactly. Don’t buy into media whipped b/s about what Wenger does or doesn’t do. ffs, these are the same clowns who get their jollies off game after game about Wenger’s coat and zip. Bunch of know-nothing planks.
Having said that, I’m frightened that I found McManaman’s commentary … quite reasonable.
i don’t know about anyone else but this seems to be Wenger’s answer to everything these days but the blame lays solely at his door. He is telling the fans for years now there is no value in the market no better strikers out there than he has. with the amount of chances created in that arsenal team any striker worth his salt would have 30+ goals this year already. i think we need a new manager to come in and get rid of half that squad this summer and start rebuilding it again. there is 5 or 6 players… Read more »
The common denominator is that Wenger encourages his players to not be robots and express themselves..ok yes sometimes like last night it cost us..and it has in the past as well, but it is also the reason that Arsenal on their day, play the kind of football that makes me love them and made me support them in the first place. As far as tactics are concerned I think Wenger got it spot on. As long as we played to his plan we looked like we could have maybe even won the game. Unfortunately we started to get on top… Read more »
i agree 100%….couldnt have put it any better
wish i could thumb you up twice!
Some terrible subs, Sanchez needs a rest, but the result seems fair given barca missed just as many chances as we did. Coyg… We will score in Spain, but they will score more…. Ps Walcott=no mate
“Sanchez needs a rest.” Nope, I’m sorry but he can’t get off that easy. He doesn’t need a rest, he had about 6 weeks off recently. He’s been piss poor recently and should not be immune from criticism.
We should buy Pires for the right hand side.
He should be benched. I’m sick of him wanting to dribble the whole 11 and score on his own instead of a simple pass. Now I see why the prefer Suarez to him
Seriously??……seriously???
You cannot play Barcelona without your main man mate. He is potentially our biggest threat! How can we NOT have started him?!
A rest from what? You think we should have gone against barca without potentially one of our best players
Bore off Wenger…groundhog Day AGAIN.
Who causes this NAIVETY all the time? …
When you put flamini what were you expecting ? You got your subs wrong, admit it and move on
Was it Flamini’s fault that Mertesacker miscontrolled/passed the ball in the box instead of walloping it out? Was it Wenger’s fault that Arsenal over committed and panicked in the last twenty minutes? All of Wenger’s substitutions were like for like: even when we were 0-1 down Wenger still brought on Flamini for Coquelin instead of a striker. He was settling for that 0-1.
This result is on the players.
Partially as he called for the pass from him. Not a very good pass granted but waited for it while Messi seized apon it. Couldn’t agree more about kicking it out of the ground but our centre backs obsess with working the ball out.
This is the video:
http://arsenalist.com/f/2015-16/arsenal-vs-barcelona/2-0-barcelona-lionel-messi-scores-on-penalty-incl-flamini-foul.html
I honestly can’t be bothered to analyse it much. But I would assume that, considering how stretched the game was at that point, Mertesacker was trying to control and then boot it upfield, not build from the back. And even if Flamini had called for the ball, Mertesacker should know better.
I still think Mertesacker is a very good player. It’s just that yesterday he had two uncharacteristic lapses in concentration that, compounded with mistakes by other players, led to us losing the game. Fine margins indeed.
I’ve been to 2-3 (Olympiakos), 0-0 (Southampton) and 0-0 (Hull) this season.
I got offered a ticket late (at face value) so please don’t blame Flamini…blame me if you’re looking for a scapegoat!!
well played my friend, well played!…..
i don’t get all these negativity either mate, but i do ackowledge the pain and understand the passion from these commenters, no doubt.
Why does everyone need to be so dramatic we played a good team and lost. Chill!!
I’m quite baffled, I have to say. I thought the general consensus when we drew Barcelona was “Fuck the CL, let’s win the league!”
I’m sure none of us expected us to get past them, so what’s with all the outrage? Yes, while it was 0-0 and we were playing quite well I was invested and hoped we could somehow pull it off, but once they scored I went back into “Who gives a fuck” mode. I’m not bothered one bit, just desperate for us to smash United on the weekend.
Because Barca weren’t up to their usual level today and we could have and should have taken advantage of that. Especially with the chances we had.
Their whole team was marked out of the game for the first forty minutes. If they weren’t ‘at their usual level’ it’s because we didn’t let them be. They came into the game as we started making mistakes and started panicking. If you ask me, the issue is psychological. There is a reason they are playing like arrogant diving cunts and we keep respecting that. We consider ourselves inferior and as long as we do that, the only way we’re gonna win is if we scrap for a goal or two while they miss chances (Bayern at home)
It’s simple: We played well enough to have beaten them today, or at least drawn, but we outdid all our great work with a stupid loss of shape at a crucial stage of the game. It was so unnecessary for use to chase a goal the way we did and it gave them an easy chance in the end. If Barcelona score a great goal you can hold your hands up and accept it; when they score because of our ill discipline, it’s no wonder people are annoyed.
Because we played well for a half and more and had some expectations we could pull it off against what is nominally the best team in the world.
Remember this is the same Arsenal team that couldn’t even beat a horrendously below-par Chelsea side at the Emirates last month, the same Arsenal side that bottled it against Olympiakos and some Ukranian team. Arsenal’s mental fragility was displayed perfectly in Flamini and Coquelin tonight in defense and Ramsey in attack. As I’ve always stated Arsenal look good in Domestic Cup games and teams that play for very little. Against the teams that want a win as much as Arsenal we tend to give less than them.
Not a Ukrainian team, to be pedantic, it was Dimano Zagreb, but it hardly matters since there hasn’t been a poor side from any country that we haven’t bottled it against – Germany (Schalke), Spain (Valencia), France (Monaco), Belgium (Anderlecht), England (Ranieri’s Chelsea) . . . To this we could add, as you say, a below-par Chelsea in the league, Moyes’s United, Southampton and West Ham even when they were losing to everyone else, Pulis teams (both West Brom and Stoke) numerous times, Birmingham in the Carling final, etc. Wenger said yesterday it was easier to prepare against Barca than… Read more »
A better headline would have been ‘Naive manager slams his naive players for being naive…..again’. This coupled with collective shit finishing that seems to have gripped the entire squad for the last few weeks makes for frustrating viewing. Hopefully a few players get moved on at seasons end & get replaced with ‘top top quality’ lest this team continue as a bunch of nearly men
Half a thumb for your comment and half a thumb for your username.
Hopefully we can move you along as well
It’s no shame to lose to a team that good. But it’s no surprise either. Arsenal cannot hope to match Barca’ or the other top teams until they get a Central Defender as good as TA6 – a M/F as good as PV4 – and at least one top quality striker, who could stand alongside MSN. They also need a Manager who can instill conviction. And the blunt truth is that Wenger cannot and never will at CL level. The latter point will never be accepted by the current Board. So either we carry on replicating this failure; or fall… Read more »
Wenger can’t instill conviction and will lead us the Europa League places or lower…despite leading us to the Champions League for the past however-many seasons?
I don’t deny it’s frustrating knowing that under Wenger we will never be able to set up to beat a team like Barca, but let’s not be too reactionary when it was a result we all expected.
Why should we lie down and accept defeat? A completely out of sorts Chelsea team played and beat this Barca team a few years ago over two legs. They even had John Terry sent off in one leg. Their manager was a comparative green horn but still managed to psyche up his team all the way. Stop making excuses for the serial nearly man manager.
now, its wenger out time again?…seriously?
We had a couple of very presentable chances.
The fact that we missed them and Barca took theirs (excusing Suarez’s misses) shows the gulf in quality. BUT, I understand Wengers frustration. We COULD have won tonight, but once again we didn’t. Same old story.
we could have lost 4-0, or 2-3. hope the goals come v manure
Its always frustrating to lose but no disgrace. Our league position is amazing, we are in the FA Cup – happy days 🙂
amazing? Really. 2nd below Leicester. In a season when all teams are rebuilding and shite? Yep, happy days!
“…before substitute Mathieu Flamini hauled down the Argentine to concede a penalty that the World Player of the Year calmly slotted past Petr Cech.”
It would be fair to mention Flamini had to do SOMETHING (as retarded as it became) due to Mertesacker’s touch on the ball prior to it.
Good god man there will be criticism of the bfg here my friend! No no no
If you look at the footage for the second goal, Flamini actually shouted for the ball. If he hadn’t Per would probably have put his foot through it.
lol….well played my friend!
pheww!
He could not do it with the invincibles, the most complete team in the history of Arsenal F.C. I personally don’t think he will do it.We must have to play barca or bayern at one stage or the next,every season.Will the mentality get any better with wenger in charge? I doubt.Most great managers/players have had one or two trophies they did not lay their hands on.Wenger’s might be the UCL.That’s not to say he’s not had a great career.
We’ve just come out of a huge game against Barcelona bitterly disappointed to lose, rather than being totally outplayed. How many teams can say that? Still concerning that we don’t seem to have any killers in our team these days. Hard to know where to find them too..
The standard has to be raised if a team which is supposedly league-winning quality goes out in the last 16 so easily, especially so if the result is the same in three weeks
Messi fails to score against Cech (at Chelsea) in 6 games but never fear Arsene FC duly oblige. For 4th place Wenger is your man (and the FA cup ofc), anything else is beyond him. Please just go Arsene, we’re all rather bored now.
I hate how fans think winning the FA cup twice in a row is just some joke. There are plenty of other teams that would take that…
I also find it baffling, everyone was convinced we would get hammered with most fans saying “ah well, it’s barcelona.” but after a 2-0 defeat, everyone has gone into meltdown mode?
Because it feeds their anti-Wenger narrative.
Arsenal played a good game. The fans were great from what I could gather. In view of the Champions league the result is horrible but we don’t have the squad to win it either way. The team got some important lessons. ALL of the teams weaknesses were exposed tonight: poor finishing under pressure, defensive lapses, bottling it after conceding a goal and insufficient squad depth. Pick up those important lessons and focus on winning the league. Those are my two cents.
We need a striker that buries the chances we had. And we need a favourable referee. Two things that they have which made the difference.
On a positive note, Welbeck looked lively and could be our saviour for the league and cup double.
We should have brought on Walcott too. We did? Then maybe Campbell next time…
Look, let’s get it into perspective. We are not playing well enough and haven’t played well enough all season to knock Barcelona out of the champions league over two legs. Yes we played well tonight but when it really mattered the gulf in class proved pivotal at th defining moments. Barca are cynical and the ref seemed to give them every decision, helping to fuel the argument of corruption in football. But let’s not beat around the bush; Barcelona are better than us, end of. But we can scrape the prem league title this year, hey we may even do… Read more »
I don’t care if we got out of the CL against Barcelona. It actually makes our calendar lighter to win the league. The problem is, this team is totally capable of having a mental break down after this defeat, and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
it’s always the same. we all knew that we can’t compete with the best from 10-12 years, but we did nothing to build a best squad which can win the trophy. same story year after year. it’s tiresome..
We played the best team in the world and lost, as everyone knew we would.
Dont get all the anger. The only thing that really worries me is the injuries.
Sounds like a cop out to me. We had our chances & yet again were found wanting with terrible finishing & silly errors. All too predictable.The woeful finishing from the team is a worry right now. I fear for our title chances & for the wives & girlfriends. With the shooting accuracy on display at the moment they won’t be sitting comfortably that’s for sure
Wenger gets alot of criticism but tonight he got his tactics spot on…The first goal wasn’t his fault. He cant put the ball in the net for them. Scratch that Bringing on Flamini was so fucking unnecessary .Terrible sub from Wenger..But other than that, Everyone was shitting it when he picked Mert but he was excellent despite being caught high on the first( not his fault alone) and the ridiculous kick to Flamini..2 mistakes two goals…Our fowards made mistakes over the entire 90mins constantly Ridiculous decision making and execution from all of them.
We should ship Alexis away.
He chokes against big teams and gives the ball away too often…he’s become a liability like Flamini…SELL HIM!
Look, after 20yrs it’s no longer an accident.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different results.
We’ve seen the very best we can ever achieve with Wenger
Wenger-angry-with-naive-gunners-again, he should not take people for granted, built a formidable team that can compete at all level. Olivier lack capacity
Wenger’s a little harsh here I thought. The team played well. The first goal was the result of a risk just as we thought we might win it. Its OK, its happened, we lost to a better team and I don’t think we were naive at all. a good performance but the Barca front 3 can stick it to you so quickly.
I thought I told u to stick with the idea of not going to watch Arsenal’s Live matches for now. Am blaming You and not Wenger, Or both You and the Players!
@ Shane
lol…i know, i know!
lighten up guys!
I think the worse thing for me was that we deserved more from the game. We held our own very well but the same reoccurring mistakes happened again. How many times have we had the ball in the opponents third and then been countered and conceded? That for me is the most annoying part.
On a positive, I guess you can say if we play like that against United we will get all three points. (hopefully.)
Why Campbell is not being picked in front of the Ox and Walcott? Considering the performances it is unreasonable
we lost against a lethal side. tbh they could have scored before, at the end of the first half. we are at our place. they are the best team. they can even tear apart real madrid and bayern like they did last year so … we had our chances but once again couldn’t take them. like i said the most important game of the wee is sunday.COYG!
Funny thing is if it was Chelsea that played against Barca yesterday, they probably would’ve won.
But as usual, we have people making excuses. Flat track bullies we are.
Wenger should be ashamed…he has failed to win the ucl in over how many years??
& whose fault is that?