AUBA AND OUT
Misfiring Gunners blow chance to save season
SHAMBOLIC Arsenal have gone from the Super League to failing to qualify for Europe for the first time in 25 years.
Mikel Arteta’s side surrendered to Unai Emery’s Villarreal in a lame goalless draw to crash out of in the Europa League semi-finals.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit the post twice but former boss
Emery had the last laugh at the Emirates.
It comes just weeks after Arsenal were among 12 teams bidding to form the Super League, where European football would have been guaranteed.
LAST month Arsenal were one of the Big 12 clubs on the continent. Next season they will not even be in Europe.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hit the post with a late chance to spare the Gunners’ blushes but it would only have disguised a depressingly tepid performance that continues to mark the alarming slide from Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles to footballing also-rans.
Yet we are constantly being told that since Unai Emery left, Mikel Arteta has been making genuine improvements behind the scenes.
On the occasion of the former manager’s return to the Emirates, they were still keeping those changes firmly under wraps. Lower down in the Premier League, they score fewer goals and still have not solved the problem of letting them in at the other end.
That was mainly the reason Villarreal had a 2-1 advantage from the home leg.
We were also told this was the biggest game of Arsenal’s season. Perhaps, though, it was the players who needed telling, because there was little sign of that urgency out on the pitch.
Granit Xhaka suffered a tightening of the muscle before kick off and had to be replaced at left-back by the not-quite fit
Kieran Tierney. Many felt, after the midfielder’s performance out wide in the first leg, that it was a twinge of outrageous fortune.
With the rest of the Arsenal line-up loaded with attacking talent, it was clear the plan was to go atVillarreal from the start. But they did not.
Their one notable chance of the first half came in the 26th minute from Aubameyang. The ball dropped to the Arsenal captain as Villarreal struggled to clear and he hit an exquisite volley with the outside of his right foot against the outside of the post.
Villarreal, on the other hand, were in Arsenal’s faces as soon as the Gunners’ possession broke down.
Within five minutes of the kick-off Bernd Leno had been properly tested and the Spanish kept the Arsenal defence on its toes. A huge slice of their cutting edge was removed, however, when Samu
Chukwueze had to be carried off after collapsing unchallenged to the floor with less than 30 minutes gone. There was even the occasional glimmer of illdeserved hope, such as when Geronimo Rulli allowed Aubameyang’s tame shot to slip though his fingers before grabbing it short of the line. A man who coached under Guardiola will have a Pep talk or two up his sleeve and Arteta ignited some fire in the Arsenal bellies for the second half. Nicolas Pepe and Emile Smith Rowe really needed to find the target, though, with two chances soon after the restart.At the other end, Gerard Moreno and Yeremi Pino did test Leno. Emery, below, and his side did not need an away goal, but they wanted Arsenal to know they could snatch one. Rob Holding had a couple headers just off target, and then came The Moment. A high cross from Hector Bellerin, Aubameyang leapt high... and headed the ball against the post. The captain said on the eve of the game he was the one to take responsibility for getting Arsenal through. Neither, mind you, had any of his team-mates, either. That responsibility is beginning to sit rather heavily on the shoulders of the manager.