THANK GOD for Spurs, Mikel Arteta might sit down tonight and whisper to himself. While Jose Mourinho’s side were grabbing headlines with their Dinamo implosion, neighbours Arsenal were busy making a bit of a mess themselves. Sometimes rival fans can be accused of spending more time focusing on each other than their own team – […]
THANK GOD for Spurs, Mikel Arteta might sit down tonight and whisper to himself.
While Jose Mourinho’s side were grabbing headlines with their Dinamo implosion, neighbours Arsenal were busy making a bit of a mess themselves.
Sometimes rival fans can be accused of spending more time focusing on each other than their own team – but Gooners could not be blamed for doing so tonight.
With a 3-1 first-leg lead behind them, this was either a night for Arsenal to professionally stroll into Friday’s quarter-final draw or confidently lay down a big marker to their fellow challengers.
Instead, they did neither.
Olympiacos were not particularly good, aside from the bogeyman figure of Youssef El Arabi who was gifted an early warning shot and notched a deflected winner-on-the-night in the second-half.
But then, Benfica were not particularly good either. And that tie required some last-ditch heroics from Kieran Tierney, the left-back who is continually Arsenal’s best player at both ends.
Arteta will likely insist that the result is all that matters, particularly in cup football where the Spaniard has experienced more success than expected during his time in the Emirates dugout.
Indeed, this was not the nightmare of last season’s last-32 where the Greeks punished Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s bad night in front of goal to actually knock Arsenal out.
The misses were still there this time but the deficit too big to overcome.
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Looking ahead, it is probably worse for Arteta that a plucky, energetic upstart such as Zagreb may land in their laps instead of Spurs.
It seems that the banana skin is the inevitable exit route if the team continues to turn in uninspiring performances, so they may as well hope for a familiar enemy or a more established side to raise their game for in the last-eight.
A strong league finish is not out of the question but otherwise this tournament is it for Arsenal, and they’re not even doing that well in it.
Still, it could be worse. They could be Spurs.
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