Unai Emery only made four changes from the team which were more than a little unlucky to only draw away to Spurs last Saturday with Petr Cech, Lucas Torreira, Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang coming into the team. I thought he would have made more changes with the hugely important game against United coming up on Sunday, but the team selection showed his intent in this competition. It was certainly a strong enough side to do enough on the night to get a result and that’s exactly how things started off at least.
Alex Iwobi scored very early on when what was really a cross evaded everybody and went in at the far post. It was the start Arsenal wanted and they continued to make chances as the half progressed, but unfortunately Torreira, Aubameyang and Shkodran Mustafi didn’t take those chances before the game turned hugely in Rennes favour. I’m very fond of Sokratis Papastathopoulos and I thought both of his yellow cards were harsh, but he needed to be more careful after getting the first one.
I thought the second yellow was more of a fifty fifty between him and the Rennes player with their player then falling at just the right time to fool the referee. With Arsenal down to 10 men they had to consolidate and hold out until halftime, but they conceded from the resulting free kick. The first attempt was blocked, but when it came out to the taker again he blasted it through the remanents of the Arsenal wall to bring Rennes level. The Arsenal players in the wall didn’t cover themselves in glory as they shirked to avoid the nasty ball hitting them and Cech didn’t stand a chance in the Arsenal goal.
The tide had turned in Rennes favour, but at least we struggled through to half time in the hope the manager could give the players the instructions they needed to get out of the game with their chances of reaching the last eight intact. Bizarrely he didn’t make any substitutions though as he moved Henrikh Mkhitaryan to right back with Mustafi moving to the centre of the defence. I thought he would have taken Ozil off as he looked for a stout defensive performance from the 10 players he had left.
I’m a big fan of Ozil, but a backs to the wall defensive performance is not the ideal scenario for him. I can only assume the manager wanted to keep him on to try to keep possession and maybe help to nick another away goal. It almost worked a couple of times, but the chances Arsenal created in the second half were far outweighed by those created by Rennes. It didn’t take them too long to take the lead when a cross deflected off Nacho Monreal and looped over Cech with more than half an hour still to play.
Matteo Guendouzi had replaced Alex Iwobi before that goal, but it was a substitution which really didn’t work. He was caught in possession too often and I’ll discuss the part he played in their third goal shortly. He talked about always giving 150% before the game, but his lack of experience was there for all to see. I still think he’s going to be a great player, but he still has an awful lot to learn.
Sead Kolasinac and Aaron Ramsey came on for Ozil and Aubameyang and it looked like Arsenal would get away with a one goal defeat despite Rennes making some good chances. Granit Xhaka really should have been sent off too after making a ridiculous challenge when he was already on a yellow card, but we were on the good side of a bad refereeing decision for a change recently. With the game almost over Arsenal did what we seem to do best and pressed the self destruct button once again.
We pushed players forward for a throw in far in their half and when we lost possession we were caught awfully out of position. As Rennes broke with five on four Ramsey sprinted past Guendouzi to try to make up the difference, but he couldn’t get there in time to stop a free header at the far post putting Rennes 3-1 up. Ramsey made about 20 yards on Guendouzi in the space of 80 yards and Guendouzi certainly didn’t give “150%” when it was needed most.
The manager and the team completely failed to deal with going down to 10 men and his decisions were strange to say the least. It’s difficult when you look back at Arsenal teams who knew how to play with 10 men and actually went on to win games. The lack of leadership on the pitch and bench last night was not a pretty sight.
We’re still not quite out of the competition though, but we will have to be an awful lot better next Thursday night if we’re going to progress. We have another huge game before that on Sunday and many people are saying this will be the defining week of our season. Defeat against United on Sunday will certainly be a blow, but it won’t end our top four chances as long as we can bounce back and play well in our final eight league games.
Out biggest problem could be our away form as we’ll probably need to win four of our remaining five away games. We have only won twice in our last 11 away games in all competitions and those games were against League One side Blackpool and Premier League also-rans Huddersfield. I thought we had turned the corner against Spurs last Saturday, but last night proved me wrong once Sokratis got his marching orders.
As a football fan hope always springs eternal and I still think we can overcome Rennes on Thursday night. They are not great in defence and we can put them out as long as we can keep our defensive discipline while putting in a strong attacking performance. Our home form suggests it’s still quite possible, but that home form is about to face a huge test against a rejuvenated United on Sunday who just cannot stop winning games away from home.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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