Match Reaction vs Bayern Munich

[Kano]

I'm more inclined to get upset about games like Blackburn where we had 11 players out there who were clearly better than the Blackburn players and thought they could coast through the game and somehow win. That's not good enough. Last night I think we were doing our best, we were just playing a much better side.

All season we've been lamenting how poor our squad is, we get dicked on by one of the best teams in Europe and suddenly it's because we weren't making enough effort.
We lacked quality, not effort. There were patches of the game where we put pressure on them but in truth Bayern never got out of 2nd gear and easily stepped it up to restore their 2 goal cushion.

‘effort’ isn’t just running about chasing shadows – as we saw a dfferent us in the second half. Our best player last night admitted we started the game nervous, which meant our normal tepid approach going forward. If we were so amazingly outclassed, we would not have managed to push forward in the second half. It follows the same pattern we have seen again and again all season long. Bayern’s class had nothing to do with us not closing down the cross or blocking the shot for their first goal, or for our defenders standing and watching them score their second. We may have expected a hard game where we lost but to hand it to them after 20 minutes? It stinks to high fucking heaven. That annoys me far more than just losing a game to Bayern.

the pattern of being scared to play, conceding sloppy goals and losing a game before it has even started goes back for as long as we can remember now and last night was no different in that regard.

[Globalgunner]

Hull thumped the Blackburn yesterday. Imagine what they would do to us......Good thing we`er not in the same league as them.

Same league.....how appropos

[Globalgunner]

Thing is our style of play is so dire...We spend about 5 mins working the ball up to the opposing last 3rd, Sagna then decides not to cross and plays the ball all the way back to Mertesacker, who invariably plays it back to Chesney and then Mertesacker and then to Sagna. This is how our possession stats get so good, 60% yesterday but completely ineffectual possession. We did not have a shot on goal till about 65 mins. In defence we mark space and when crosses come in we focus on blocking the opposition players from getting to the ball, rather than challenging for the ball itself. Poor keeper, our players technique is poor. Walcott is a joke, Giroud aims for the keeper. No-one ever takes a shot from outside the box. Midfield is clumsy. Ramsey is an agent-provocateur for the opposing team. Vermaelen thinks he is De Kaiser loses the ball whenever he charges upfield.
All this has been repeating itself ad nauseum for the last 3 years and the man in charge just tells the boys the same thing game after game. "Just play your game chaps, the goals will come"

[server too busy!]

Sagna is poo at being an attacking RB, he can't beat his man and just ends up turning around, same for Podolski. The real problem is our defense, now is this down to those in front of them (so often it looks easy to play a ball straight past our midfield players and be in on defense) or is it the defenders themselves?

What I noticed as well were how good Bayern were at blocking shots and attempts on goal, if it were us those would be deflecting in on goal. Is that down to coaching or ability though?

[LDG]

Not gonna crucify the team for this, as they did put in a shift last night. Thought they worked hard, despite the mental lapses at the back again.

We were beaten by a far superior outfit, and whilst a change in tactics may have helped, we were always going to be beaten.

So here's the point:

The fans should be on the players side after last night. It's not their fault they aren't as good as Bayern. That's the fault of the rotten core at the club which has allowed us to fall so low.

There were two players last night which I would deem good enough to play against and compete with as side of Bayern Munich's quality WITHOUT any instruction from a manager. They are Wilshere and Rosicky. One is carrying the team as best he can, the other is sadly injury prone.

With that team, drilled and managed properly, we could have stifled them more, and we may have made our own luck. But we aren't, and we don't have the players capable of doing it on their own.

[Grebbo]

We lost to a better team, it happens.

Bayern also beat us at home in 2005 when we had Henry, Vieira and co.

Whilst we deserved to lose I don't think we are getting much luck at the moment. Ok, our goal last night wasn't a corner but all 3 of their goals last night were jammy. Even against Liverpool at home their two goals consisted of a deflection and a ball perfectly rebounding for Henderson.

[LDG]

We lost to a better team, it happens.

Bayern also beat us at home in 2005 when we had Henry, Vieira and co.

Whilst we deserved to lose I don't think we are getting much luck at the moment. Ok, our goal last night wasn't a corner but all 3 of their goals last night were jammy. Even against Liverpool at home their two goals consisted of a deflection and a ball perfectly rebounding for Henderson.

You make your own luck.

If we had stopped the source of the danger for their three goals (also known as having a left back), the unlucky way the ball went in wouldn't have been an issue.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

We lost to a better team, it happens.

Bayern also beat us at home in 2005 when we had Henry, Vieira and co.

Whilst we deserved to lose I don't think we are getting much luck at the moment. Ok, our goal last night wasn't a corner but all 3 of their goals last night were jammy. Even against Liverpool at home their two goals consisted of a deflection and a ball perfectly rebounding for Henderson.

You could say it was luck, but you had about 5 chances to clear our first and Henderson, who isn't exactly Drogba, was able to skip away from Mertesaker (?) and hold off Santos and was able to get a shot away before any of them even put a tackle in. I think Ramsey was the one who put the block in.

[Kano]

You make your own luck.

If we had stopped the source of the danger for their three goals (also known as having a left back), the unlucky way the ball went in wouldn't have been an issue.

which is my point. Yes bayern are better but we did everything possible to hand them the tie with 160 minutes still left. Can we not even lose a game with a fight? Or is 20 fucking minutes the best we can achieve in a home tie nowadays. Its absolutely pathetic how timid the team is and has been for so long.

We start the game with theo up against two giants, so no chance there with no spearhead to our team. Ramsey out wide – yes he is there to help retain possession and drop back into midfield but bar two games, when has that ever worked? Bayern set up the same with Muller out wide but ramsey is nowhere near that calibre.

So we are undermined with our starting line up and then we switch off for two goals and we’re fucked, any small inclining of a chance to get through to the next round completely and utterly buried. I can accept losing to a better team but I can’t accept watching us roll over and getting done time and time again. Great, we ran about a lot, fantastic. Bayern were great but we also let them dominate the game because once again we were fucking scared.

We won’t get fourth, which I accepted at the start of the season but that won’t be enough to push wenger out the door as the new message will be ‘well one season out of 17 is not too bad is it’. Even if we did get into fourth, what is in store for next season? Justification of his approach more of the exact same.

[Grebbo]

You could say it was luck, but you had about 5 chances to clear our first and Henderson, who isn't exactly Drogba, was able to skip away from Mertesaker (?) and hold off Santos and was able to get a shot away before any of them even put a tackle in. I think Ramsey was the one who put the block in.

Didn't Henderson get his shot away and then it was saved/blocked off one player on to another player and then the ball rolled right into Henderson's path for a tap in? I'm sure it was something like that.

Anyway they all count and we were well beaten last night I'm not disputing that. It just seems that when you're on a bad run you don't get any breaks whereas the opposition often does.