UEFA to blame for Arsenal’s impending exit from the Champions League

Jack Wilshere and Per Mertesacker dejected after Bayern Munich’s first goal.

Last night was one of those defeats you come away from feeling slightly proud. A 0-2 loss at home to probably the best club side in the world pretty much sealing your exit from Europe’s premier club competition isn’t really something you would expect people to be proud of but it was the manner of the defeat that has left me with a sense of pride.

Before I get into my stride, for balance sake, I should probably go over a few of the “bad” points. Firstly, Özil’s penalty. It was awful , there is no escaping that. He has now missed two because of his lackadaisical approach to the ball and weak shooting. Should he have taken it? Superstitious ex-players would remind you they never took penalties they won and with Cazorla and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the pitch, both in fine scoring form, you would forgive me for thinking he was the wrong choice.

Watching the game with James ‘Raul’ Stokes, we agreed that Özil would miss before he struck the ball. Everything just seemed wrong, the look in his eyes, the bloody commentator reminding us how he had missed one before and his short distance from the ball. We were devastated to be wrong.

This is not an Özil bashing post, not at all. He has been magnificent and will only get better, but I am of the opinion, you miss one penalty in the manner he did against Marseille, you don’t take one again. Wenger said he prefers people to run at the ball properly. He also said do what you feel comfortable doing, but Mesut never looked comfortable to me.

Did it have a bearing on the outcome of the game? It probably did. He scores and nothing that happened after happens because the course of history has been changed, but we cannot blame him for it. No, that would be wrong and unjust.

He made a mistake, learn from it and move on.

Koscielny’s poor positioning for their second was a killer blow and probably ended the tie, as at 1-0 down you feel you have a chance in the second leg, but he is not to blame either.

Robben is a dirty little diving git, but I don’t blame him either; you expect him to fly through the air and hit the deck like Flappy Bird.

I blame UEFA. I blame UEFA and the FA, and every single FA across Europe for the abysmal standard of refereeing we are seeing.

Nicola Rizzoli is probably a competently trained referee but, like all referees, he cocked up the big decisions. I think he allowed us to get away with a little more after the red card for Szczesny, and I believe it was because he knew he had cocked up.

Szczesny brought down Robben, no two ways about it but if that was a red card so was Boateng’s on Özil. By the letter of the law Szczesny’s was a red card but Robben made a mountain out of a molehill plus the ball was in a very difficult place to control, if it was that easy to control and score you get the feeling he would have because his greed knows he isn’t the penalty taker. In the spirit of the game it was a yellow card.

Wojciech Szczesny fouls Bayern Munich’s Arjen Robben

It’s a harsh rule. It’s a double punishment. This rules needs to be re-thought. It kills games. Unless the tackle showed intent to harm it should be a yellow and a penalty.

The referee also refused to send Boateng off for a second bookable offence. Weak decision making.

We see refereeing decisions dominating matches all of the time yet the football hierarchy refuses to use technology to assist them; but that’s a different debate. Barcelona and City had to suffer a referee whose league has not played a game in 4 months. Also, it’s the Swedish league! No disrespect to the Allsvenskan, but the level of competition is not at the standard of Champions League matches.

It’s incredibly frustrating as inconsistent refereeing spoiled what promised to be, and was delivering as, a wonderful spectacle. And that leads me onto why we should be proud.

Arsenal came out of the blocks like men possessed. They certainly dominated the first 10 minutes and looked to be giving Bayern a real match. Bayern were seeing more of the ball, but they didn’t look in control of the match. It looked very even. The players showed no fear and were proving they belong on the same pitch.

Our surprise starter, Sanogo, showed great movement, excellent link play, speed, strength and some wonderful touches. He brings a lot of what Giroud does but he has that additional dynamism Giroud does not, albeit tempered with youthful exuberance and inexperience. We have a real player on our hands here.

It was really tough to go down to 10-men against the best team in the world and to lose Gibbs to injury. Monreal is an extremely able deputy but he is limited and those limitations were exposed by Bayern although it should be noted Nacho performed admirably in the face of these exposures.

To go down to 10-men and only lose 2-0 against Bayern is a wonderful achievement in and of itself. Few teams could boast such a scoreline with 11 men and facing Bayern’s “reserves”.

Most impressive were the majority of the supporters in the ground. The joint-effort between the club and REDaction with the card display must be praised, but it would not have worked without the supporters in the ground getting involved. The display was a visual feast only surpassed by the audio atmosphere created by our supporters singing their hearts out. This is the sort of atmosphere we should create every match, and it is clear we can.

There is much to be proud about, and we should not be pointing fingers at anyone internally for this defeat. It is what it is, and there is nothing we could have done about it. UEFA need to sort out their refereeing system and demand consistency in decision making from their officials.

Coming back to beat Bayern is a tall order but it is something I have no doubt we will try to do. Address me as you please once I say this but I would be tempted to play a team good enough to not be embarrassed at the Allianz whilst resting as many key players as we can get away with. Getting past Bayern is almost mission impossible, and despite coming close to achieving mission impossible over the past few years against Bayern and Milan those were years we had almost nothing to play for. This season we have two competitions we have a great chance of winning and overexerting ourselves trying to achieve the unrealistic could be our undoing.

I want to see us prove to the world what we can do against a Bayern in an even fight but even if we went out with a 2-1 win at their place it would prove nothing to the world who would claim complacency on Bayern’s part again. It would be nice to show we have the minerals to beat them, but it would be even nicer to be fresher for the run in and make a real go of the FA Cup.