Lacazette - barn door - banjo - this evening

Yay. Torreira. Our second shot on target.

Ha ha. Torreira marking Ba at the corner. Nuts.

And now there’s 30 more minutes of this entertainment. Yawn.

I'm never convinced by Arteta's substitutions. Why Willock and not Martinelli?

How ridiculous putting Torreira to mark Ba in the corner. Ba wouldn't need to do much if the ball comes his way.

Really poor tonight. All the worst attributes in the team. Passing too slow, too many touches, no off ball movement, no tempo.
I’m still smarting from that ref decision to not send their guy off in the first half. Might not have changed our ability to be woeful tonight but playing 10 men for 70 minutes has a huge bearing on the tie

A very lethargic Arsenal team tonight. What happened?

Worst 90 minutes of Arteta's time by some distance. Woeful.
Let's hope we can claw our way through somehow.

Looks like we started on the basis that we just needed to turn up to go through. Difficult to ramp it up from there.

In fact it’s a bit like watching a game of walking football.

It is evident that at least 2 defenders will crowd out Pépé when he has the ball. Why don't Arsenal have a tactic for runners to offer Pépé an out-ball? Twice there, Özil preferred to hang so far back than to run forward to receive a through ball.

I think so too

About time we take Lacazette out. He had been ineffective tonight.

Martinelli for Lacazette.

Well Martinelli has made a difference. Creates the opportunity for Aubameyang.

Look at the relief from the Arsenal players. And Aubameyang was so emotional there. Good one lad

We can't sell Aubameyang. We just can't.

You’ve got to admire the enthusiasm. Crowd now singing “the greatest team the world has ever seen”.

Pépé is messing us up

Bollox. Got what we deserved.

What is Leno doing. 90 seconds left to just concentrate.
Season over

Yes. We have been very poor tonight.

Can't we defend properly? Just hold on to the lead, and we mess it up.

A disaster of a night.

F me. How did Aubameyang miss that!

Weirdly we could have clawed it back right at the death. Sums it all up really.

Holy *%^@ what a miss.

Got exactly what we deserved. Not a shot on target until the 76th minute at home against mediocre opponents is simply not good enough.

Sorry but we are lacking quality all over the pitch.

That's no CL football for another season then.

Aubameyang misses a virtual open goal from 4 yards. He scored that 999 times out of 1000.

The perfect storm of a game is complete.

Awful ref call to not send their man off
Slack defending from set pieces
Dominate possession but no goal threat
Miss a sitter at the end

Don’t deserve to save anything from this absolute mess of a season. Terrible performance

You saw that coming somehow. We scored and I knew it. In all the elation where’s the party pooper saying get the *%^@ back! let’s keep it out! 5 minutes lads if you lose concentration I’ll have you on a plate.

I think playing Aubameyang out wide is just nuts. It's not like Lacazette is pulling up any trees down the middle.

Would you rather lose now or in the semis or final again? Because that’s what would have happened. Apart from anything the creaky defence guarantees it. At least we know where we are. I mean, that’s somewhere along sh*t creek, but at least we know...

Martinelli must start ahead of Lacazette. He gives so much more.

Such an annoying way to go out on the away goal rule when one team has 120 minutes to score them and one has 90 minutes to score them. Some will say we had home advantage for longer, but I’d always rather play the second leg away.

Too much of the old Arsenal today, very lax attitude, no tempo, no energy....dare I say it they thought they could just turn up and go through.

Just when we were all getting positive about the season again we’re reminded what a massive mess this has been and we’re a long long long way from getting back to being a serious team

Like he missed a penalty at Spurs last year and that cost us CL these season. Nothing and I mean nothing has changed under Arteta. That was a disgraceful performance and make no mistake Arteta was totally outthought by the other coach. The moment he went for safety with picking all the experienced players over others we started behind the 8 ball. Like Wenger And Emery when they started protecting their job over picking the form players.

Not just that that defence is poor, but our midfield is always so tentative. Özil, Ceballos and Xhaka cannot make fast attacking plays. They are always looking to pass sideways or back, especially Xhaka. You see the forward play from them only when it is backs to the wall time. Frustrating that this style of play continues from the Wenger days, through from Emery, Lundberg and now Arteta. We are just too slow in our attacking play. And Pépé is over-doing things. And his tricks and flicks are not working for us.

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... e-17829207

Luiz talks and talks, but messes up too often

A lot of people have beeing waxing lyrical about Arteta but I have been less than impressed with some of his team selections and substitutions.

Let's be real, Arteta's options are somewhat limited quality-wise but why not bring on Martinelli earlier tonight? Little things like that make me wonder what game he sees unfolding. Almost like Wenger's blinkered substitutions.

I want to see Özil and Xhaka gone this summer and I wouldn't be inclined to make a play for Ceballos on the evidence so far.

The team needs to be faster, fitter and stronger.

I watched Bayern the other night and they play a possession-based game but everything is done more quickly and more accurately, the tempo of their passing is much quicker. Not to mention they look fitter and stronger than their opponents.

You can pick so many scapegoats from that performance. For me it served as a reminder, despite the recent optimism, that this squad still needs a total clear out in the summer. The same problems are there. The best players won’t want to stick around so we have to sell, the worst players we’ll struggle to find buyers for and there is plenty in between that needs moving on. The green shoots of recovery have been firmly stomped down with that result. So careless. It is a long long road for us to be competitive again. Next season looks like no European football at all which is a further £30m hit to the budget

At first I thought we were deliberately trying to control the game by playing slowly and unadventurously, but then we as the game unfolded we had no real threat. Our final ball was poor, and our movement in the final third was poor. Lacazette looked a shadow of a player, Aubameyang was stuck out wide, and Pépé just incredibly frustrating. At the time I thought it was predominantly Leno's error which lead to their winning goal, but having watched it back, Luiz inexplicably lets the ball sail past him rather than clear the danger. It feels like the Arteta honeymoon period is now over.

We can go on about needing new players or even a different coach all we like. But I’m fast reaching the conclusion that it’s no more than a side issue. I can’t prove it but I strongly suspect we could appoint Klopp or Guardiola as manager, bring in an assortment of the world’s best players across various positions, and not an awful lot would change.

I reckon we could be in a KSE museum for old relics. The guide says the fossil over there used to be an English football club, sorry an English soccer club, with a great history of winning trophies. But under Stan we think measuring outputs in the context of winning competitions is so shallow these days. It isn’t the Kroenke way. We prefer a higher or more moral measure of success than tacky trophy wins.