Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger revelled in the resilience of his side after the Gunners weathered a Paris Saint-Germain storm to escape from the Parc de Princes with a potentially pivotal Champions League point.
Advertisement
Olivier Giroud and Marco Verratti will both miss their team’s next group games after they saw red in the closing stages of the match.
In Theo’s absence, Alex Iwobi and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain started on the wings on Tuesday night and I thought neither had particularly good games so the sooner Alexis Sanchez and Walcott are back out wide, the better. “Previous year he made a mistake in the Champions League and everyone jumped all over him”, Wenger told British media. He showed what he’s about tonight.
“I take responsibility for that because I only scored the one goal and those two points we dropped will be important at the end of the competition”.
Giroud and Verratti collided in the 93rd minute of the game, resulting in the referee showing both stars their second yellow cards. Against Paris Saint-Germain though, the two looked like they’d never played together, and Coquelin, the more defensive of the two, was often caught inexplicably high up the pitch.
Wenger revealed after the match he had made a “rule” for the keepers this season and that is believed to include Ospina keeping his place for European games as long as he maintains his form. “If they change, I’ll tell them”.
The Arsenal striker was dismissed in added time, picking up a second yellow for a challenge on Verratti. The incident did not appear serious and Marquinhos, who shoved the Arsenal striker, escaped without any sanction at all. Ospina is a very good goalkeeper and puts in world class performances on a regular basis for Colombia, however, it was probably the first time that he had done so in an Arsenal shirt.
“But, overall, we played against a good PSG team who started much stronger than us”.
“When you start so badly against a team of that quality you need experience”.
Advertisement
Basel and Ludogorets ensured that all teams in Group A go into the second round of group games on equal points after the sides played out a 1-1 draw in Basel. That is what we did.
