Arsenal’s poor defence strength haunted them down on Tuesday’s Champions League game as they blew away a 3 – 0 lead over Belgian side Anderlecht to end up in a draw at Emirates.
The match had started with the host tromping on their opponents defence. They earned the opener with a penalty goal from Mikel Arteta.
Alexis Sanchez doubled the lead and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain fired home a third.
Shortly after Alex’s goal, the disastrous moment started. Arsenal were out looking for more goals and Anderlecht capitalised on their poor defence against counterattacks to equalize the goals in a space of 29 minutes; scoring the last goal in the 90th minute.
The damage was done, coach Arsene Wenger looked furious and devastated.
His side had lost a very realistic opportunity of topping Group D.
“Defensively we were poor from the first to last minute today,” he told Sky Sports.
“When they came back to 3-2, you want to secure yourself again and we were maybe not cautious enough because we wanted to score goal number four. If you look at goals two or three, it is very poor defending.
“I was never completely sure we were not in danger because you could see the whole game that we didn’t defend well. Everyone is down tonight because we give a 3-0 lead away and you can imagine what kind of consequences this has for the spirit of the players.
“The end result is very disappointing. We had a bit of bad luck because the first goal is offside. A bit of lack of concentration because we think the job is done and a bit of fatigue as well because we had problems to finish the game. We didn’t win the challenges any more
at the end.
“Now we have to win our next game to see if we have a chance [to top Group D]. It is likely now Dortmund will win the group, but our first worry is to qualify. One point should be enough, but it’s not done.”
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