Arsenal fell 1-0 to Bayern Munich, ending the Gunners’ Champions League campaign. There’s not much analysis to be done of the match, I don’t think. It was as close as close can be, and Arsenal came up short. The Gunners were the better side in the first half by a hair but couldn’t make it count. Bayern Munich found a goal in the second. Arsenal ran out of gas. And that was that.
Gabriel Martinelli was a livewire in the first half, the most dangerous player on the pitch for Arsenal. The best chance of the opening 45 minutes fell to him, but his half-jumping, first-touch volley on a bobbling ball was steered right at Manuel Neuer. Martinelli was also one of the players who might have tracked Joshua Kimmich’s late run into the box to prevent him getting a free header for the decisive goal.
Three lapses over the course of two legs led to three goals against Arsenal. That’s how fine the margins are in the Champions League. It is a brutally difficult competition. Just look at how long it took Manchester City, with all their cheating money and talent to win the competition.
You’d like to say it’s the type of thing that this young Arsenal side will learn how to handle better, but I’m not sure that’s the proper explanation. I think the players are exhausted. When your body is tired, your mind is tired, and those tiny mistakes are magnified on the biggest stage against the best of the best. The two cheap goals in the first leg were killer as was Bukayo Saka not being awarded what was, at the absolute least, even for the people who think not giving a penalty was the correct decision, a “you’ve seen them given” penalty shout at the death of the match at the Emirates.
And Arsenal ran out of gas. They ran out of gas in the second half of the loss to Aston Villa. They ran out of gas in the second half against Bayern Munich today. The Gunners really struggled to trouble the Bayern defense down the stretch, and it’s because the players are beat. Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard, both of whom have made an impact as substitutes this season, failed to provide the necessary spark. A large part of that was that they had little to work with, the guys around them just didn’t have the energy.
The unfortunate reality is that despite improving the squad depth, Arsenal still aren’t deep enough to basically be perfect in the Premier League and compete in the Champions League. It didn’t help that Bayern Munich haven’t played a meaningful match in the Bundesliga in about a month, either. Bayern have been able to rest and rotate players. Arsenal haven’t. It was patently obvious in the decisive second half.
The Gunners are only 13 or 14 players deep, at least with guys that Mikel Arteta trusts enough to play in big moments. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. For him, it seems as if guys have to be playing at least semi-regularly to earn trust. But to play semi-regularly, Arteta and Arsenal need to find lower stakes minutes for those players to get match fit and sharp. You can’t have guys finding their form in high leverage situations.
When you have to be nearly perfect in the Premier League, those minutes aren’t readily available. If Arteta rotates in the Premier League, do Arsenal go 10 unbeaten to start 2024? Probably not. They needed every single one of those points to get to where they were heading into the Aston Villa match, and it still wasn’t good enough.
It looked as if Fabio Vieira was going to enter the rotation of trusted players before his winter injury sidelined him. Perhaps if he doesn’t get hurt, Martin Ødegaard and / or Bukayo Saka get more time off and have a bit more left in the tank. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that left back has been a problem all season, a place where Arsenal bought in the summer and saw their purchased player, Jurrien Timber, lost for the season through injury 50 minutes into the campaign. Takehiro Tomiyasu was mostly fine tonight, but the Bayern goal came down the left.
The Gunners will have to improve the depth (yet again) this summer. Mikel Arteta will need to learn how to trust more of his players and find / manufacture time to rotate the squad so that they don’t stumble down the stretch. It’s not a question of desire or mentality, nor is it an indictment of Mikel Arteta. They’re just running on fumes. Like the squad, he’s young and early in his career. These aren’t fatal flaws. They’re areas for improvement.
It stings to have another season peter out. This tie was there for the taking, but Arsenal couldn’t quite snatch it. The Gunners played well or at least well enough for it to be within reach. There is no shame in going out to Bayern Munich, the 5th or 6th best team in Europe depending on whose statistically ranking you’re using, in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. And that’s before you factor in that it was the first time in the competition for the manager and the majority of the players. If you take a step back, this club is still trending steeply upwards.
