Martin Keown has acknowledged that Arsenal displayed a lack of experience during their defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarterfinals.
Despite putting up a strong performance for much of the game, the Gunners ultimately conceded a goal to their German opponents.
While Arsenal managed to trouble Bayern’s defence at times, it was evident that Bayern possessed greater experience compared to Mikel Arteta’s side.
As the match reached its conclusion, Arsenal seemed to run out of ideas, as highlighted by their decision-making during a late free-kick opportunity. Instead of opting for a traditional shot at the goal type of free kick, Arsenal chose to play short, resulting in Bayern conceding a corner kick. However, Bukayo Saka’s subsequent corner failed to beat the first Bayern defender, indicating a lack of creativity and execution from Arsenal in crucial moments.
Keown was not impressed and said, as quoted by the Daily Mail:
‘It was very disappointing, kind of summed up at the end there when Saka for some reason taking a free kick [short] when there was the opportunity to really test the goalkeeper.
‘You just saw that little bit of lack of experience. There needs to be more urgency in the closing exchanges. Saka made that decision in the moment.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
Our players lost the confidence to chase the equaliser late in that game after seeing their hard work undone by the Bayern Munich goal.
However, we expect the team to learn from this experience and do better in the Champions League next season.
ADMIN COMMENT
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I thought the quick short free quick was good, until it went wrong. But taking the longer more direct one probably would have been defended, and trying to catch Bayern out was a much better idea. So I don’t agree Martin.
It all ended in ouster
ouster?
Bukayo Saka is extremely overrated. Just compare him with Cole Palmer next week. By the way, the whole EPL is overrated. When two of the three top teams in the league goes in QF of UCL, and the third (who is only qualified for Europa League) have to leave their competition as well, it say something about the quality of EPL. And in that situation ask for five English teams for the next year is laughable.
this is a bigger discussion English football should be talking about. The spending is out of control but the level of football is quite simply not higher. English game has far too much running up and down and not enough thought at the moment. Ancelotti, Tuchel mitigated ours and City’s attack with great effect. A Liverpool side thats been in the title race most of the season got humiliated by Atalanta, Leverkusen who doesn’t spend close to what West Ham does takes care of business and doesn’t lose a single game yet all season. There is a reason people always say leagues like La Liga are FAR more technical, and it shows every year because they are always up for the big trophies and we tend to always see a Spanish side win at least one European title and beat out EPL teams that spend an insane amount of money.
I sort of agree tbh. The reason saka is rated, really, is that he gets good numbers of goals and assists over the course of a season. His goals are often fairly impressive in terms of their quality and he also generally works hard defensively. He’s not poor in big games overall, but can be completely shut out by defenders.
When I watch him, I find myself thinking he’s lazy when we have the ball – very static and waits to get the ball, rather than moving into space. He sizes up the defender and, because the defender usually has a chance to set himself, saka too often ends up having to pass backwards and recycle, or simply gets tackled trying to run them. I don’t know, it just looks too me like he doesn’t have the explosiveness for that style of play, and really needs to think about how to be more effective in his general play, moving into space now often and not just waiting for the square pass.
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but that’s how it often appears to me.
The coach is the cause of our troubles by refusing to play the more effective midfield of Partey, Rice and Odegaard. He is too emotional about keeping Havertz on the field for 90 minutes.
This midfield can be very productive and is simply one of the best in the PL but the coach has been reluctant to give any chance to Partey before he got injured and after he has been fit.
Yet with only a few minutes on the pitch, he produced the assist that led to the Saka-denied penalty. With Havertz playing as 8, we have hardly scored more than 1 goal. His best performances have come as false 9. But later in the Bayern game, instead of bringing in Partey to partner with Rice, the coach once again moved Havertz to 8 where he has been most ineffective. Shocking!!!
Partey has looked absolutely miles off it every appearance he has made this season, both physically and on the ball. He was awful the back end of last season and has played well for about 30% of his arsenal career.
Liam you are probably not watching football or you are economic with the truth. All players need more minutes to be fit which the manager has inexplicably denied PARTEY AND OTHERS GIVING HARVETZ A BLANK CHEQUE TO MISFIRE AND Get CLEAR CUT CHANCES TO TAP IN AND GET praise from people who hate football.40 GAMES 10 GOALS. I DONT WANT YOU TO TELL THE WHOLE WORLD HARVETZS ASSISTS IN 40 GAMES. I GIVE UP
Yeah, people only seem to remember the best of Partey, while in his few games this season he’s been passing straight to the other side. I think his career with Arsenal is just about done.
Thank you Jax. Partey been a million miles off it and thats why he hasnt been playing. Back to SSHADRACH, whats Parteys top scoring season or Rice for that matter. How many has Jesus scored this season? What about Martinelli or Odegard ? All less than Havertz. Dont let your emotions cloud youre judgement pal !!!!
Saka and Martinelli need to evolve their game. It’s the same tricks every match now and teams have figured them out. Have to wonder if the coaches are especially working on evolving Martinelli because it’s been ages since the guys been impressive and he hasn’t stopped any of his bad habits over the course of two seasons now.
Martinelli has been shocking this season, I think he’s too one dimensional and defenders have cottoned on what he’s up too. I think we should retrain him as a cf as his pace would suit a plan b counter attacking style for when we go into half time at 0-0 for say. I wouldn’t mind us getting a top class rw and play saka left. He started out as lb then left wing and only moved to the right because we had too many left and no right wingers.
I think I would call out White, Raya, Zinchenko, Haverz and Gabriel before sticking the knife in Saka.
Over both legs.