I just can’t win, cries under-fire Wenger
ARS ENAL 5 Walcott (45), Giroud (53), Waterfall (og, 58), Sanchez (72), Ransey (75)
LINCOLN CITY 0
THE score suggests that Arsene Wenger cruised serenely into his 11th FA Cup semi-final.
Rarely, though, has he reached Wembley with such little fanfare.
No manager in history has won more FA Cups than Wenger but the possibility of him lifting his seventh 10 weeks from now hardly registered at the end of one of the most difficult weeks of his 21-year tenure.
They were well beaten by Liverpool and Bayern Munich, but Arsenal haven’t lost against a non- League club since 1911 when they had Woolwich in front of their name.
No one seriously thought they’d lose this either, but it was a bit jittery before Theo Walcott’s shot deflected off defender Sam Habergham in first-half stoppage time.
Olivier Giroud’s second removed all prospects of a comeback and Luke Waterfall’s own goal just before the hour made the scoreline look more respectable.
Alexis Sanchez scored number four in the 73rd minute and Aaron Ramsey completed the destruction of the competition’s giantkillers with a fifth two minutes later.
Wenger knows that beating a non- league team, however convincingly, is unlikely to get the critics off his back.
He said wryly: “You should sit in my seat for a while and then you would realise that it’s an impossible job to keep everyone quiet.
“I just focus on winning the next game. We were a bit nervous because the confidence drops when you don’t get results. The team was criticised for the performance against Bayern Munich, but the players didn’t let me down, or themselves or the club.
“I’ve watched the match three times and it’s still the referee who killed our game.”
Wenger may be the Cup’s most successful manager, but there’s been a growing sense among the supporters that his rule at the Emirates is now coming to its natural conclusion.
Many are now actively agitating for that, with dozens staging a street protest outside the stadium before the game.
Yet there are different noises coming from a boardroom that has made no managerial change for over two decades, and chairman Sir Chips Keswick says that the decision on a new two-year contract will be taken mutually. Most observers believe, though, that it’s ultimately Wenger’s choice.
Wenger has fielded less- than- full- strength teams throughout the FA Cup but it’s a sign of the pressure he’s under that he took no chances with his line-up.
“I didn’t want to gamble because I knew it was important to win the game today,” he said.
“I also wanted to give them a chance to get confidence back by winning the next game because we had been hit very hard after the Champions League game.”
Farman scrambled a Mesut Ozil curler round a post and, just when it began to look like Lincoln were going to get back to the dressing- room at 0- 0, Walcott broke the deadlock.
Farman kept Lincoln in the game just after half- time when he saved superbly from Giroud, but the Gunners should still have scored because when the ball came back to Kieran Gibbs he headed over.
But Giroud did get the second after 53 minutes when Bellerin got round the back of the visitors’ defence and crossed low.
The third was an own goal from Waterfall six minutes later and you just had to hope then that Lincoln were not going to be humiliated.
Unfortunately the discipline that has been the hallmark of Cowley’s side crumbled as Sanchez scored a fourth and Ramsey walked in a fifth.
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 from then on in 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. We need to be proud of what we’ve done.
“This is not a time for criticism. It’s a time to reflect on what we’ve done. The key thing is to learn from this and come away better footballers and better people.”