ARSENAL 5 LINCOLN 0 NOT SAFE Wenger still hounded by the haters
COWLEY: I’M PROUD OF YOU ALL
time all square, but it all fell apart in the closing moments of the first half.
First, Farman somehow kept out a curling Mesut Ozil free-kick, then seconds later Walcott fired home the opener with the help of Sam Habergham’s deflection after a Kieran Gibbs pass.
It was a heart-breaking moment for City and their dream was well and truly over as two quick goals after the restart by Olivier Giroud and unlucky defender Luke Waterfall, who turned a Gibbs cross into his own net, made it 3-0. With Sanchez in full flow,w, the Chilean made it 4-0 then n Aaron Ramsey grabbed a fifth. h.
Lincoln are out, but this wasas a glorious defeat. While it mightht be nearing the end for Wenger,r, this is just the beginning for thehe Cowley brothers.
And for the Arsenal lynchch mob who want Wenger’s head ad on a spike, they will have to waitait for another day. LINCOLN boss Danny Cowley hailed his non-league heroes after their FA Cup dream was crushed by rampant Arsenal.
Cowley saw his stars hold Arsene Wenger’s Premier League slickers for 45 minutes before Theo Walcott pounced with an injury-time opener.
Arsenal ran riot in the second half with Olivier Giroud, Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey adding to Luke Waterfall’s own goal. And Cowley said: “We had a tough second half against world-class players.
“When they scored on the edge of half-time it was always going to be difficult.
“They got confident and we got dragged around and hurt in wide areas. But we’re the first non-league team in over 100 years to get to the last eight of the FA Cup so we need to be proud of what we’ve done.
“This is not a time for criticism. The key thing is to learn and come away better footballers and better people.”
Wenger saluted Lincoln’s stars and admitted he was nervous before the game.
“We were a bit nervous,” said the Gunners boss. “The team was criticised for the Bayern Munich defeat but we had to take a distance from that and look at the bigger picture – and we responded.
“I played a strong team because I didn’t want to gamble. Recently we have disappointed our fans so we want to go again to Wembley to win.
“Lincoln had a very direct game but a clarity about what they wanted to do. They have quality and I think they will come up into the league.”