DO IT MORE OFTEN! Arsene Wenger Slams Arsenal's 'Suicidal Defending' In Monaco Capitulation

Arsene Wenger: We missed chances and were suicidal defensively

Arsene Wenger savaged his Arsenal team and blamed ‘suicidal defending’ after they crashed to a 3-1 defeat against Monaco at the Emirates in the Champions League. The furious Arsenal manager claimed his players were not mentally prepared for the first-leg as goals from Geoffrey Kondogbia, Dimitar Berbatov and substitute Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco condemned them.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had scored a spectacular goal for Arsenal to bring it back to 2-1, but Arsenal will need at least three in the return leg on March 17 to progress.

The Dail Mail story continues:

Wenger said: ‘We missed the chances and we were a bit suicidal defensively. We were not at the level we want to be. The second and the third goals are suicidal. We came back to 2-1 and we have no right to let them score as third. ‘It makes our task difficult in the second leg. We lost our nerves and rationality on the pitch, and the heart took over the head.

‘At this level it doesn’t work. Mentally we were not ready, we were not sharp enough to get into this game. We paid for it.

‘In the first 20 minutes there was enough room to win it. If you look at the chances we could have won.

‘Football is not down to paper it is down to performance. The players wanted to come back from 2-1 to 2-2 and forgot the elementary cautiousness needed.

‘We have a smaller chance to win but we will go for it. We have to recover from that.’ Wenger claimed his team were naive in the first leg and they face a massive battle to reach the quarter-final after losing this first leg in these circumstances.

Oxlade-Chamberlain had brought Arsenal back into the tie after coming on as a substitute, but his mistake allowed Monaco to score a breakaway third.

Arsenal players look stunned having put in a dismal performance against Monaco in the Champions League

The Arsenal manager added: ‘We had a lot of possession and defensively we were not at the level we need to be.

‘But our weakness was mental more than anything. We rushed our game, we knew it was bad at half time and were too impatient. This is a 180 minute game and if you look at the second and third goal it is difficult to explain how this happened.

‘Oxlade-Chamberlain is very disappointed. How can it happen if you lose a ball 70 metres away from goal?’ 

Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim said: ‘Football is an art, defending and attacking. It is difficult to score a lot of goals in the Champions League, but we were able to take advantage of the space Arsenal gave us. Berbatov played a terrific match in terms of his positional play, he was our first target when we tried to build our play. He had a great game.’