OSPINA’S FUMBLE SHAMES WENGER
Arsenal heading for an early exit
They trooped out wordlessly. Silent, stunned. ‘highlights on the big screen,’ cried the stadium announcer. ‘yeah, let’s all stay for that,’ growled one of the locals, breaking the uneasy peace at last.
Normally, a result such as this would provoke an outpouring of rage. Sometimes, the shock itself is just too great.
Arsenal knew they had their work cut out with Bayern Munich in Group F. They convinced themselves that Zagreb was a tricky place to go and defeat in the first game was no disgrace. But this?
here was Arsenal’s banker, their three points in the bag. It is Munich next, home then away. There is every likelihood they could be out of the competition altogether come the first week of November. how are a team who cannot extract a point from Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb meant to fare any better against the form team in europe right now?
And the form striker. Robert Lewandowski is red hot, in a different league from the players Arsenal found impossible to repel last night. Will Arsene Wenger admit he was wrong and at least pick Petr Cech in the next match?
he can be very stubborn these days. he still thinks there is little better beyond his squad, despite all evidence to the contrary. he cannot keep losing to inferiors while insisting this, right here, is as good as it gets.
Twice Arsenal went behind last night and twice they drew level. The third goal killed them but most worrying for Wenger is the ease with which Olympiacos scored after the equalisers. Arsenal 1 Olympiacos 1 lasted five minutes. Arsenal 2 Olympiacos 2 stood for 59 seconds.
This is arguably Wenger’s poorest result as Arsenal manager in the Champions League. Losing at home to Manchester United in 2009 was bad news, but it was at least a semifinal. Last year’s defeat by Monaco took the english game by surprise — a disturbingly familiar feeling these days — but, again, it was at the knockout stage.
This, a group game considered such a formality there were empty spaces dotted around the emirates, is a fresh level of humiliation.
Olympiacos have never won a Champions League game in england, and were on a run of 12 straight defeats here; it was 1976 when a Greek team last scored three goals on these shores, AeK Athens against Derby County. even by Greek standards that has the ring of ancient history. yet here we are. Arsenal in disarray with league leaders Manchester United up next. In all likelihood, there will be no Laurent Koscielny for that fixture, too. he limped off midway through the second half, replaced by Per Mertesacker. yet not even Arsenal’s big effin German could do enough to repel the match-winner, an Icelandic international on loan from Real Sociedad, Alfred Finnbogason. A big effin name, producing a big effin upset. every little catastrophe was present for Wenger on a truly dispiriting night; missed chances, weak defending, error- strewn goalkeeping
Emirates Stadium
Attendance: 59,428 and poor decision-making on the manager’s part. Preferring David Ospina (left) to Petr Cech was a fatal decision.
Ospina was solely at fault for the second goal, the one that stripped out Arsenal’s confidence and made them feel vulnerable to the very last. Credit to Olympiacos for their persistence and bravery, but Arsenal should have done the job.
There are times when it is genuinely hard to fathom Wenger’s reasoning. What was the point of signing Cech in the summer if not to play him on nights like this?
If Ospina is not the man for Manchester United on Sunday, how is he the man here? Olympiacos were always going to carve out the odd chance and Arsenal had to be ready; this was no night for the reserves.
It was enough of a shock that Arsenal went behind after 33 minutes. They had been in control the first half-hour as Arsenal aped Olympiacos’s slow, continental pace. The fans settled into their seats, presuming it would be a matter of time before Arsenal scored. And then, lulled into false security, disaster struck.
The goal came, as ever, from a mix-up at the back, two defenders contesting the same ball and unable to stop it falling to Brown Ideye. he got it trapped beneath his feet and couldn’t get a shot away, laying back to Kostas Fortounis, whose strike was sent over the bar by Gabriel’s full-blooded block. Olympiacos, however, were sensing rare opportunity. Fortounis laid his corner back to Felipe Pardo on the edge of the area and his shot was deflected en route to goal, wrongfooting Ospina and nestlingling in the corner of the net.
There was a moment of awkward silence. Thee locals knew what they had seen until that point and it was not a team that appeared capable of an away goal, let alone an away win.
To their relief, threee minutes later, order was as restored. Alexis Sanchezchez broke down the left and cut inside, feeding Theo Walcott. Playing down the middle, he slotted the ball too near goalkeeper Roberto who, fortunately, made a mess of keeping it out. Arsenal were level; it would all be plain sailing from here.
And then — a leak, in the form of goalkeeper Ospina. With four minutes to go before half-time, he was utterly flummoxed by an inswinging corner from Fortounis, at first off his line, and then scrambling to recover his position, dropping the ball as it squirmed over.
Or did it? Replays could not give a definite reading, but Olympiacos’s protests were forceful and the assistant referee pointed upfield to the restart, meaning Bas Nijhuis of holland gave the goal.
Technology would have allowed us to know for certain. Instead this is a ruling courtesy of Michel Platini — the only man who thinks the way to solve the problem of human error is by introducing more humans. No wonder he finds it so hard to get paid on time.
In lieu of hard evidence, then, all that is left is a circumstantial reading. Olympiacos celebrated, and protested, as if they had scored. Ospina did not seem to dispute the awaward. Maybe he didn’t know where he was, or whwhere the line was. Would Cech have saved it? We can never know. But we could certainly have a good guess.
And that is how it rremained until the 66th minute, when a Walcott cross was heheaded in by Sanchez. FroFrom there it was widely expeexpected Arsenal would push on to claim a surprisingly hard-fought win. Instead, a minute later, Olympiacos scored the winner. Fortounis played a superb chip in to Pardo and his cross was clipped in by substitute Finnbogason, to widespread fury and despair.
This was Arsenal’s racing certainty, the must- win before back- to- back matches against Munich. If Arsenal cannot withstand this, how will they withstand that? The answer? They probably can’t. And they don’t deserve to, on this showing. even the europa League wouldn’t miss them.