What Tuesday night’s loss made me realise is that I’ve totally misjudged this Arsenal side. It’s not that I believed they were world beaters, but I had been labouring under the misapprehension that they were a quality side struggling with consistency. Now I see how badly I’ve overrated them. Bayern Munich are among the best in Europe and the way they comfortably handled us on our ground is a clear measure of how far we’ve fallen from the top of European football.
Many supporters will console themselves with the knowledge that few teams in Europe could beat this Bayern side. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s an unacceptable excuse. If Arsenal expect to be taken seriously as a Champions League team, then we should have a squad that is capable of competing with whomever we draw. Being beaten by Bayern is not unforgivable. Being swatted aside with relative ease in our shiny new stadium is hard to take. And it’s hard to take because the decision has been made that this squad is strong enough as it’s currently constituted.
We have every right to expect our team to fare better than this against any opposition. Arsenal managed a draw and a win at the Emirates against arguably tougher Barcelona teams. And those results were achieved by mostly disappointing Arsenal sides. But the erosion of quality at the club seems to have well and truly caught up with us. We now find ourselves neither able to focus enough to dispatch lesser opposition, nor possessing the quality to handle the top sides. On Tuesday night we got a first hand look at what a potential Champions League winner looks like, and we saw just how far we’ve fallen from that standard.
There were so many players found wanting on Tuesday night that it hardly seems necessary to name them. Unlike disappointments of the past, there can be little argument that this was essentially our strongest XI. Left-back aside, the manager had every player to choose from and the players he chose were overmatched. It’s fair to point out that Thomas Vermaelen’s struggles deputising at left-back were a huge problem in this match. But the fact that he was the only player available for the position is every bit a crisis of our own making.
What this match made me realize is that the players we consider mediocre aren’t even that good. And the players we consider quality are mostly mediocre. In the humdrum existence of a midtable Premier League side, players like Lukas Podolski and Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker may seem like world-class talents. But when confronted with a truly talented opponent like Bayern, it’s easy to see that they are far from what’s required if we ever hope to be the best.
The best players are daring and confident in the face of any opposition. But most of Arsenal’s players hid from the spotlight on Tuesday night. According to opta stats tweeted by @orbinho, Mikel Arteta completed 29 passes to Per Mertesacker. All game long the midfield and defence passed the ball back and forth between one another, unsure of how to attack Bayern. We lacked the cunning, the courage and the class to do it. We failed to muster a shot on target in the first half, and only managed a goal thanks almost entirely to comical refereeing and even worse goal-keeping.
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Originally Posted by AKBapologist
