Arsenal Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2015/16 ( Mod Note linked in OP 29/12)

Before the Bayern match i wasn't too confident for Arsenal to avoid a defeat - especially with the players we had missing. But while I watched the game I found myself more and more frustrated, not because Bayern were playing well and are a fine, strong team but because we seemed to be playing a game that we never tried to play before.

Debuchy seemed to be playing centre back and Campbell seemed to be drifting far too much into the middle. As expected they were targeting our right side and for some reason we decided to abandon the right side completely.

We weren't putting enough pressure on them when they had the ball and couldn't live we their pressure when we had the ball.

Did the Arsenal management actually look at any video of Bayern before the match? Did we analysis the tactics of other teams who have gone to Munich and won? Do our bench players not want to impress the manager and put in a good energetic shift?

From an Arsenal point of view that game was played in fear. Fear of making a mistake that results in Bayern having enough time on the ball to pick the correct pass or space to make a shot.

We should have trusted our defense and the midfield should have put Bayern under more pressure than we did. We narrowed the pitch, bunched up in defense and let Bayern play at their own pace with lots of space around them.

Despite the lack of effort by some of the players, we lost this match before it started because of the way we prepared and the flawed tactics we used.