Monaco, ah Monaco. How well I remember your tight twisting turns, your dark tunnel, the difficulty of shaving a half second from my best lap time and the despair as Pete the Greek or The Lizard Man shot past me on the home straight. Our race evenings with the Sega Megadrive were dissolute affairs and towards the end of the night the driving had become more than a little erratic due as much to the thick coiling mist of dope smoke as to the occasional full bodied bottle of red despatched by the drivers. Looking back I can’t help thinking Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczęsny would have fitted rather well into my social circle. These days I am of course chaste and pure and the Formula One games on offer are so ridiculously complex and cluttered with unnecessary petrol head pleasing detail about engines, tyres, pit stops and leaderboards that I have formally retired from the circuit. Monaco will never again thrill to my stoned, mercurial driving performance.
Back in those halcyon hazy days the only other thing Monaco meant to me was Grace Kelly. Oh and there was that time when Bertie cancelled a trip to Monte Carlo preferring to spend Christmas with Bobbie Wickham and her family much, it has to be said, to Jeeves’ chagrin. Little did I know as I adroitly applied the tongue to a heavily laden four skinner and prepared to take my place at the front of the grid that a man called Arsène Wenger, unknown outside of Nancy where he had enjoyed an unremarkable managerial career, had recently taken over the reins at AS Monaco FC. To be fair I probably didn’t know Monaco even had a football team. You know what they say, if you can remember the nineteen eighties you weren’t there man. Anyway this young unknown manager replaced none other than Ștefan Kovács who deserves his own special place in the hearts of all adherents to the beauty of the game for his commitment to the total football of the Ajax teams of the early seventies. Monsieur Wenger revived Monaco’s waning fortunes winning the league in his first season and signing the likes of Weah, Klinsmann, Djorkaeff, Hately and some bloke called Hoddle, oh and while he was at it he oversaw the development of Thierry Henry, Emmanuel Petit and Lilian Thuram. Not a bad day at the office. Sadly in return, Monaco would treat the man destined to become our glorious leader in a somewhat shoddy fashion. They refused to allow him to discuss the vacant managerial role at Bayern München who were apparently very keen to talk to him, but then dismissed him not long after the Germans had become fed up of waiting and in their impatience gave the job to Giovanni Trapattoni.How they must have rued the day.
If I’m honest I was an international illiterate when it came to football in the eighties and nineties and, unless Arsenal were in a European tournament, paid scant regard to what went on south of Dover. What a parochial little stoner I was. Shameful really. During my period of self imposed exile from the human race Monaco enjoyed success and despair in almost equal measure both winning titles and being booted out of Ligue Une for financial irregularities (although that punishment was commuted on appeal). They endured seven years of the managerial merry go round before being relegated for real this time. In a sadly familiar twist to a modern footballing tale they were ‘rescued’ while languishing at the bottom of Ligue deux by, yep, you guessed it a Russian billionaire. Predictably enough the obscene torrent of spending has seen them rise with the smell of burnt feathers from first in the second division in 2013 to second in the first last year. They are currently fourth after a stop start season not dissimilar to ours in many ways.
Once again Arsène agrees with me (he so often does, great minds and all that, I believe we both gave up smoking at a similar time too) that there are parallels to be drawn between the two clubs saying “Monaco are in a similar position to us. They came back into a good position in the league and their confidence level will be high.” I don’t know if our confidence levels will be high after the amusement at Selhurst Park on Saturday or not. I believe they ought to be as the untidy little scrap at the very end of the game should not cloud the ease with which we had held off a spirited Palace side and the consummate skill with which we had taken such a commanding lead beforehand. To attempt to play proper football on what amounted to little more than a Sunday league pitch against a side set up for kick and rush was always going to be a big ask and I think the players showed huge character to stick at it and get the job done. Those who want to whine and bleat about Palace hitting the post need to include our near misses as well if they are going to play ifs and buts. The simple fact is we scored more than them and played the better football. Our only mistake if it was a mistake was allowing them to put us under too much pressure in the final part of the match. Sometimes though, in football, the other side just dictates the play and you have to grin and bear it. As much as we’d love to put all our opponents to the sword in the way we dispatched Aston Villa you can’t expect it to happen every week. Had Alexis not had a rare off day with his finishing we’d have gone three up and I very much doubt Palace would have had any fight left in them, but then who knows? See I can play ifs and buts just as well as the next man.
Tonight we can put the nightmarish up and under of English mud ball behind us. Tonight is what so many other supporters can only dream of. Tonight they must look on in envy. Yet, incredibly enough, under Arsène Wenger Arsenal fans have come to think of this as the norm. The knock-out stages of the Champions league. So many have spent so much trying to emulate what Arsène achieves, and he has done it while simultaneously building a new stadium, while constricted by such a tight budget that he has been forced to sell his best players. Yet he delivers it every single year. We really are lucky Arsenal aren’t we? Lucky to have such a great man in charge, lucky to have such a fantastic stadium, lucky to be treated to some of the best football ever played. I love the feeling of waking up on the day of a Champions league fixture, let’s face it you are following the wrong sport if you don’t love it. It is the holy grail for every Premiership team and make no mistake if any one else achieved it year in year out while being outspent by nearly all of the competition they would be lauded as the greatest manager in English football.
Well, we don’t need the hideous reptiles of the British sports media to tell us what we already know do we? Monaco were once lucky enough to have him and we’ve been blessed to have had him during the most vital years in our club’s modern history. This is a tournament in which we have come so close, enjoyed some famous victories and suffered some agonising defeats. Tonight and in all future rounds of the competition all I hope is that the fans and players give him the victory he has earned, no man deserves it more. I believe the team are good enough and I believe they are ready.
Positively Arsenal 
Horrible deflection. Ospina no chance.
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shows what can happen when you actually take a shot, something Arsenal have not done tonight despite all our possession
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HT: Arsenal 0-1 Monaco
need to step it up big time in second half, need to raise the tempo and speed of our game, might be good to get Walcott on early
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Well we completely dominated them, played some lovely slick football and they bang a deflected fluke and it goes in. A wicked horrible cruel game sometimes isn’t it? Heads up Positivistas there is a long long way to go in this tie.
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Wellbeck had a shot within a few seconds of the kick off, Giroud had a header just wide, Alexis had one tipped over the bar and we had a blatant penalty ignored. What exactly do you mean by “shows what can happen when you actually take a shot, something Arsenal have not done “
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stew what I mean is we are over doing the passing when 20 yards from goal, it would be nice if someone would actually take a shot at goal and not abdicate responsibility and pass it sideways. We’ve not actually had a shot on target so far.
We are also getting in others way up front, and playing too many five yard passes than the Monaco defense are cutting out over and over, its games like this that you really see what Ramsey brings to our game plan, he is never afraid to have a shot, never afraid to get in behind our strikers, to overload their defense. Cazorla and Ozil prefer to stay outside the area, and Alexis is going too deep too for the ball.
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come on Arsenal, don’t spoil my birthday
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we look to have upped the tempo
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such fucking awful fucking defending, lose the ball in their area, and end up conceding at the other end, awful stuff,
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Giroud having a mare
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fans want Theo on,
Giroud misses a sitter after goalie palms out an Alexis shot
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Walcott on for Giroud, half an hour left, come on Arsenal get this out of the fire.
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Monaco cut us open again, we are all over the place in defense, Ospina out quickly to block it out for a corner
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Monaco close again
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Welbeck should have tucked that away, just needed to be calm and lift it into empty net, instead he blasts it off Walcott
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schoolboy defending again, awful, the team have fallen apart
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need to bring on Rosicky and Oxlade-Chamberlain, 25 minutes left
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Oxlade-Chamberlain on for Coqeulin
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great ball by ox to theo, goalie out quick to intercept
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bellerin booked for a professional foul, he could not afford to let the guy run at Per
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per all over the shop, clueless tonight from him
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Good God the Monaco fans are doing the ole’s and nothing our lot are doing to stop it
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Rosicky on for Cazorla, about 10 minutes left.
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Alexis misskicks a half chance
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Ozil booked for dissent
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expecting a chorus of boos for our lot at the final whistle
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Missed the first 10 minutes but after that completely outplayed. Too many players giving the ball away. Sanchez showing us why Barca didn’t want him anymore. Needed some calm heads out there and there weren’t any.
Oh dear – not much to be positive about tonight.
Arsène will be furious.
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Ratings
Ospina 6.5 – had little to do, could do nothing about first two goals, think he should have done better on teh second made couple of good blocks
Bellerin 6.5 – worked hard, tried his best to help the attack, defended well
Mertesacker 3 – woeful stuff, on 2 goals and nowhere on the third either
Koscielny 4 – not much better than per, awful on third goal
Gibbs 6.5 – worked hard, tried his best to help the attack, defended well
Coqeulin 6.5 – had a very good first half, not as good in second half
Cazorla 5 – little impact on the game
Welbeck 5 – worked very hard, missed couple of decent chances
Ozil 5 – little impact on the game
Alexis 5.5 – little impact on the game, messed up some good positions by taking wrong choices and poor passes
Giroud 3 – missed four or five decent to good chances, as we have seen from him in the past, when things start to go wrong he lets it get to him
subs
Walcott 4 – caused a few problems for Monaco
Oxlade-Chamberlain 5 – scored a fine goal, messed up a bit on their third goal
Rosicky 3 – no impact
woeful stuff, get back into the game and then give it away with more schoolboy stuff, all 3 goals were a disgrace,
really saddened to see how little work rate our lot put in compared to Monaco players, far too many of our players seemed to think it would be easy and did not want to fight for the cause.
the defending from us was a disgrace, and Per’s lack of pace really causes us so many problems when teams break on us, and his decision making tonight was pathetic
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Fuck fuck fuck
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This is not good for my health….
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I know shit will rain on us because of this loss, but Monaco scored with every shot on goal they managed to eke out. We, on the other hand, missed three sitters. Whoever the fuck told Giroud to use his right foot more deserves a flogging.
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it all starts with attitude, and too many of our players just have the wrong attitude, they don’t want to do the nitty gritty bits, they don’t want to fight, they don’t want to battle, and then to cap it all off, when things go wrong they lose their heads and then its wrong choice when on the ball, its either take the easy option or the hollywood option.
Said it earlier, its games like this that you really notice the loss of Ramsey, our midfield tonight only wanted to play in front of the Monaco team, none willing to run in behind, none willing to have a shot, and too many lacking battle and work rate.
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Just in the pub waiting for friends after the match.
There weren’t that many opps to shoot passed up in that first half.
They scored from their only shot in te half a deflection.
Second goal Bellerin holds his run, Sanchez tells him to break, Ozil picks the wrong pass…the experienced Debuchy would’ve trusted his instinct.
These games are always close and Arsenal not taking their chances in the early second then not chilling out after getting back in the game were the most annoying.
Not crappy media memes about arsenals football in PA please. We like out football here: when they play well the football is good, when not so good. the football is not as brilliant. It’s a simple game for me. But then, I am simple.
We knew that without Arteta and Ramsey, one of the key two CMs it was going to be hard. After all we saw their quality in midfield esp. in pre-season.
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Gains Monaco might have scored 3 with only 3 shots on target, but we had no shots on target the first half, and did we have 3 on target in the second half.
the most annoying thing is, yes even more than letting in the third goal after getting back into the game, how our bad defending basically gave Monaco the game, we did not make them work for the win, we just gave it to them, Per just can’t cope with teams breaking on us, and its not just his lack of pace, he goes walkabout, which just compounds the problem.
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Its not possible to defend that . Its just not. Awful, just fucking awful.
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I don’t believe our work rate played a part in this loss. Monaco were clinical and executed perfectly. We, on the other hand, were disjointed and executed poorly.
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didi Hamann says Wenger not to blame for the mess of the third goal, says Per and Kos should have settled the team down after the ox goal, that its up to senior players to game manage, that its their job as senior defenders to keep the fullbacks in place for the final few minutes, just let the 4 attackers look to get the second goal, and not allow that third goal in.
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Gains of course our work rate played a part, Monaco had loads of time on the ball all game long, we did not put in the work rate to close them down as a team.
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the concern now is that the team will be flat for Everton on Sunday and vital points will be dropped.
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Wenger just said that the players lost their heads, lost their nerves, and let their hearts rule their heads
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one of Wenger’s quotes “We had the chances we didn’t take and we were suicidal defensively. We knew at half-time it was important to keep our nerve.”
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Wenger “Even at 2-1 how can we with one minute to go just leave it open the whole half.”
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I just realised I posted on the old thread, can’t be arsed to copy it over here. You’re not missing much!
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from what I’ve seen of Wenger’s press conference so far, he is really pissed off with the players, probably the most I’ve ever seen from him in a press call.
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“…it all starts with attitude, and too many of our players just have the wrong attitude, they don’t want to do the nitty gritty bits, they don’t want to fight, they don’t want to battle,…’
I find this characterization completely unfair, and it really makes me angry. If this is the way the convo is going to go here, well, then I’ll be back when people calm the fuck down. Ridiculous statement.
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passenal
February 25, 2015 at 10:26 pm
Well, that was not part of the script going into this game! We were poor all round, even our big players let us down today. It was a mentally and physically tired performance – perhaps that boggy pitch on Saturday took more out of the team than we realised at the time. I just hope all concerned can put this horror show behind them and get back on track for Everton, which will not be easy. I hate to be a doomer but it looks like the CL dream is over for another season.
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“Not crappy media memes about arsenals football in PA please. We like out football here: when they play well the football is good, when not so good. the football is not as brilliant. It’s a simple game for me. But then, I am simple.” Amen, Fins.
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This has happened so many times this season – a good run followed by a total fuck-up and the need to “pick ourselves up” again for the next match (fans as well as players).
Sunday now very important indeed – Everton will play a similar game – strong defence and try to catch us on the break.
I wonder if Gabriel will get the nod.
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I have had better evenings
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Leave the write up to me though 10ish the presses should roll
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