WELL that was a colossal waste of time, money and effort. Half-hearted Arsenal lost for the first time in the Europa League yet still finished top of their group with a game in hand.
And it is clear that the novelty of competing in Europe’s second-level competition is quickly wearing off for many of Arsene Wenger’s men. Players who thought the Europa League would give them the opportunity to compete for regular first team football are now starting to realise that they are going to be back on the bench at the weekend no matter what happens on a Thursday night. Olivier Giroud spent the evening complaining to the referee and appealing for a free-kick every time he was challenged while Francis Coquelin and Mohamed Elneny could rarely string three passes together in midfield.
Danny Welbeck’s return from his latest injury only lasted until half-time and Calum Chambers’ comeback was only 68 minutes as Wenger chased the game late on. Even Jack Wilshere looked to be struggling to get himself up for his first game since Gareth Southgate made it clear that he won’t be getting back into his England squad any time soon. Wenger predictably complained about the 62nd-minute penalty conceded by Mathieu Debuchy and converted by Sehrou Guirassy.
He moaned: “We lost a game where they basically had one shot on goal and honestly it was not a penalty at all."
Yet it was all made irrelevant by the news BATE Borisov and Red Star Belgrade had drawn 0-0 in Belarus, which meant that Arsenal topped Group H despite this defeat. At least it provided a useful run-out for Welbeck, who looked short of sharpness up front after managing just one game in the past two months. Wenger explained: “It was always planned that Danny would only play for 45 minutes. He has just come back from injury and we have three more games in the next ten days so medically the risk was a bit too high for him to play on for longer.
“He has been out for a while but he has no new problem. He was ready to play on and was frustrated to come off but he is in good shape.
“We had a lot of possession and created plenty of dangerous situations but we missed the accuracy with our passing in the final third to finish off our chances. “I can’t fault the preparation or the concentration of my players. Our attitude was good but it took us time to get into the pace of the game and the pitch was a little bit of a handicap tonight.” The post-match statistics showed that Arsenal had 16 attempts on goal compared to Cologne’s four, but the only time they ever looked like scoring came when Coquelin’s first-half shot struck the base of a post.
Cologne, bottom of the Bundesliga with only two points from 12 games, celebrated at the final whistle as though they had beaten Barcelona rather than Arsenal’s reserves.
Quite what their fans had to sing so loudly about was anyone’s guess, but at least their enthusiasm helped us to stay awake during a night which will not live long in the memory.
From The Sun
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