Coral Ambassador Alan Shearer delivers a damning verdict on Arsenal and gives his thoughts on Barca v PSG…
Arsenal capitulated once again on Tuesday evening, just like they did in the first leg in Munich and against Liverpool. There was no sign of any player in the side rolling their sleeves up and demanding more from their teammates, which has been their problem for a while now.
I really don’t know what Arsene Wenger was talking about when he said it was a terrible decision from the referee. I thought it was a penalty and a red card. He is trying to dodge the bullets now. If he was going to stay, why is he going through all this misery? Why has he not announced he is going to stay? My guess would be he is leaving. Maybe he thinks that if he announces that he is going to go, the players may down tools. Well they are not exactly playing for him now are they?
Alexis Sanchez was dropped to the bench for the game against Liverpool. Arsene gave the reason that they wanted to go long but since when do Arsenal play long football? If he did it for disciplinary reasons (which he said he didn’t, but there must be something in it) then why put him on the bench and allow him to embarrass you further? By bringing him on at half-time, he was then asking him to save his neck. They got much better in the second-half when he was on pitch. If it wasn’t for disciplinary reasons, then how can you leave your best player out of the game? It’s just a real mess of a situation.
Arsenal have won the FA Cup and finished in the top four in two of the last three seasons. As bad as they have been recently, they are still on course to doing that. That has been good enough for Arsenal in recent years, so it’s hard to see how that wouldn’t be good enough this time around. I don’t think he deserves to go out with criticism ringing in his ears given what he has achieved at the club and where he has taken them since taking over. I know they have not won the league since 2004, but he does not deserve to go out of the club with fans protesting and demanding he must go. You saw it the other night before and after the game, albeit with a small number of supporters. It is going to get louder and louder if they don’t win the FA Cup, or finish in the top four.
I would never call for a manager to be sacked, but you can only judge with what is happening on the pitch and they are letting him down. They looked tired and lost and not up for the fight. There seemed to be huge problems within the dressing room. You have so many players that are nearing the end of their contracts. You can’t expect those guys to sign a new contract if they don’t know who is going to be there at end of the season, and who’s going to be manager. It’s a pivotal time for Arsenal. If these players don’t sign they will need to sell them in the summer.
The game between Barcelona and PSG was one of, if not the best comeback ever in European football, but nobody has seemed to mention the Suarez dive. I don’t want to take anything from the game but don’t forget he had already been booked five minutes before that, also for diving, so he should have been sent off.
PSG were a shambles and Barcelona were magnificent; there is no doubt about that, but you can’t just brush over the fact that it was a blatant dive. I was surprised that there wasn’t more focus on the incident in the post-match analysis, as the penalty he ‘won’ was crucial to the course of the match, so it really shouldn’t have been ignored. PSG did have chances and Cavani missed the one-on-one, which really would have put the nail in Barcelona’s coffin. But it was an extraordinary match, one you will never forget watching.
