For the life of me, I don’t understand why David Raya was so far off his line, and while that can be forgiven, Gabriel was supposed to launch the ball to Row Z as he was visibly under pressure from Harry Kane. What did he do instead? Make a dreadful pass to Jakub Kiwior that wasn’t on the same wavelength with him, which led to a counter attack that saw Bayern score a goal.
How was Leroy Sane allowed to turn Kiwior inside out and still make a slalom run through all his markers before he was scythed down by William Saliba for the Kane penalty?
Games like these at this elite level are actually made or broken by such moments and Arsenal was found wanting. Thanks to UEFA scrapping the away goal rule, Arsenal had a genuine chance of going for it in the second leg, but it was rather cagey.
The pivotal moment came when Martin Odegaard fashioned an amazing chance for Gabriel Martinelli who had all the time in the world to actually get the ball in his stride and blast it in, but he side-footed the ball with his weaker foot straight at Manuel Neuer. This brought back memories of Gabriel Jesus creating a chance for Leandro Trossard that was wasted. At this level, you need to take the chances you get and bury them accordingly. Sadly, we didn’t.
Like the Aston Villa game, the warning signs were there. I can’t understand how Leon Goretzka was left unmarked in the penalty area but his header clipped the cross bar. Raphael Guerrero attacked the rebound and smashed the post. Shades of Ollie Watkins and Youri Tielemans chances over again.
Then like Leon Bailey’s goal in the weekend, the sucker punch arrived. Ben White could have done better to close down Guerrero, but his cross into the box was headed home by one of the Hobbits on the pitch, Johusa Kimmich. Martinelli had done very well to quell the threat Sane posed by supporting Takehiro Tomiyasu but this time, he was found wanting as his lack of awareness in the box allowed the Bayern right back to creep into the box unmarked to score a goal. The same way Declan Rice lost his bearings in the villa game.
Arteta spoke a lot about margins in his post-match press conference and you could see how disappointed he was to lose this contest. Arsenal had a very good shout of making it to the semifinals of the Champions League for the first time in 15 years but we bottled it.
With Manchester City also crashing out in the quarterfinals after a penalty shootout with Real Madrid, both teams have only the Premier League to fight for, which will make the end of the season very intense.
Following the amazing start to 2024, these have been some difficult couple of days for everyone connected with Arsenal, but we have to rally each other and give it our all for the remainder of the Premier League games.
The lads gave their all, but it just wasn’t good enough.
Sayonara.
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