Per Mertesacker has highlighted Arsenal's attacking shortcomings and suggested that their lack of cohesion and penetration was the reason for the Champions League defeat to Barcelona at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.
Arsenal lost 2-0 in the last-16 first-leg despite plenty of resolute defending from Mertesacker and his colleagues against arguably the most lethal attack in world football.
There was frustration for Arsenal in the manner of the concession of the opening goal on 71 minutes, when they were caught on a counter-attack that had started inside the Barcelona area. Arsène Wenger described his players at that moment as "naive." Lionel Messi finished off the move and he added the second on 84 minutes from the spot.
It was difficult to ignore the feeling that teams can only hold out for so long against Barcelona and it should also be said that the visitors had at least four excellent chances that they did not take.
But Mertesacker echoed the annoyance of Wenger when he talked about how his team had again mis-fired in front of goal. Wenger had said beforehand that the one thing he had confidence in was their ability to score but curiously for such a creative side, they have now drawn blanks in five of their last eight matches in all competitions.
Against Barcelona, they mustered only two attempts on target. The first was from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain midway through the first-half, when he ought to have done better after the ball broke to him inside the area, and the second was a header from Olivier Giroud on the hour that worked Marc-André ter Stegen. Each of Arsenal's front four endured difficult evenings, with Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez unable to exert an influence.
“You have to score at one stage against Barcelona to keep the pressure up on them,” Mertesacker said. “They had a lot of possession but we defended well and we had to score at one point – that was the key to why we lost in the end.
“It was obviously a disappointing ending. I think we defended so well over 70 minutes and then we got punished twice. We tried so hard to cover each other [on the first goal] but someone was always a little bit late on that counter-attack. It was a bit naive but when you keep going for such a long time and keep up with a good team, you have to score. That [the opening goal] was a disappointing moment for everyone and we couldn’t get over it.
“We need to play better on the break and when we have the ball. We could have created more chances and shared the ball better in the final third. Obviously, we need to score. Then, we could have put pressure on them and they would have to come at us.”
Wenger said: “We were impatient in the build-up. We lost balls that we usually don’t lose and it wasn’t because Barcelona forced us to do it. It was just because technically we were not precise enough in our passing.
“We had an unbelievable chance in the first-half [for Oxlade-Chamberlain] and the way we finished our chances is a problem. I feel that in the final third, at the moment, we miss something.”
(Guardian service)
