Arsenal FC: Quickest Way to a Heart Attack!

What a night Wednesday night turned out to be! Full of heart, tension, and nail-biting, heart-stopping drama right to the finish.

Thanks to poor old Max Tonetto (well, he is certainly over-age football-wise at 35, but in no way am I truly sympathetic for him), I am praising the powers to be and waxing lyrical over our “victory” that ensured a clean-sweep of English giants in the quarter finals and that we do not end up with England’s wooden spoon in Europe for the second season running.

And of course, there’s the little matter of that dream of returning to Rome in two-and-a-half months’ time.

Having said that, this will not happen, not if we have a repeat performance (or mal-performance should I say) as the one at the Stadio Olimpico.

I reiterate, despite the delirium and ecstasy of our progress into the last eight of the Champions League for the fourth time in five years, the fact of the matter is this was a performance every bit as tepid and uninventive as we will have feared from having going into this crucial encounter.

I had hardly even settled at the pub where I was watching the match and the screen hadn’t even begun working when news of Juan’s ninth-minute goal to level the tie filtered through.

This cued a massive rant from me about how we have talked the talk of keeping Roma at bay and protecting our slender lead only to go and royally screw it up early on, conceding a shambolically-defended goal scored by a half-fit defender!

Indeed, as I frantically phoned friends to update me on the situation until we managed to get the screen working on 20 minutes (being forced to live through watching Manchester United take a fourth minute lead against Inter Milan in the meantime), the first half assessment of my “phone-a-friend” can be aptly, although somewhat colloquially, be summed up as follows:

“We’re playing s**t!”

Hardly the promise of really going out there and holding our own with our advantage then!

Wenger will have surely feared the worst as he watched on from the touchline, with our inexperienced midfield practically limping their way through the first half, outmuscled and outwitted by the vastly street-wise Totti, Pizarro and co.

In fact, the manager’s body language throughout the match made for interesting reading, as a sulking look on his face as he sunk into his seat in the dugout during the second half and extra-time did not look good at all, ironically, when the match had started turning towards our favour, albeit without any goal threat, Touré’s 93rd minute header apart.

Which makes Wenger’s praise of our “nerve” and “outstanding mental strength” even more interesting, and makes me wonder whether what he would have said as faced the press would have been entirely different had it been us who suffered shootout misery!

Granted, in front of a partisan crowd, after being rattled so early on, and after an exhausting, delayed journey and with anti-Arsenalists (and there are many of them) impatiently waiting for us to slip up we showed character and solidarity in the second half despite not being able to effectively trouble the home side’s defence.

However, Wenger’s postmatch words did not befit his facial expressions and body language, he looked an unhappy man and an uncomfortable one.

And he has every reason to.

Even though we showed the true qualities of hanging in there when the going got tough, a relative rarity in recent times when compared to Manchester United and Chelsea, before admirably prevailing in the achingly long penalty shootout, serious questions hang over our strength and penetration against top-quality opposition.

This must surely be the lesson learnt by Wenger and his players as they partied at the Olimpico’s away dressing room.

Roma are a good side, we should make no mistake about it, a team who were out with a point to prolong their dream of appearing in a final on their home ground, a big ask for any away side in the first knockout round as rightly pointed out by Le Boss, and as I alluded to in my last publication.

However, they are by no means an outstanding side, and there are many of them potentially awaiting us in the next round!

Our inefficacy in the final third last night was rather alarming, and, combined with our wayward passing and loss of possession in the first half, we may well get ripped apart when it comes to facing the Barcelonas, Bayern Munichs, and Manchester Uniteds of this world should we start as weakly as we did on Wednesday.

That said, a lot of our troubles stemmed from being unable to wrap the tie up in the first leg, where we could have easily gone to the Italian capital with two or three goals in the bag.

And that again must be taken note of, for all the good football and dominance will count for nothing at the very top if we do not make the most of it.

With the quarter finals looming, Wenger must find the balance between solid determination and clinical, penetrative finishing, or else we will be in for a potential roasting by the aforementioned teams, teams oozing in quality from top to bottom that will provide much sterner tests than Roma, at least on paper anyway.

So, our dream of the unthinkable is still alive (just about) and we’re back to mundane Premier League matters on Saturday.

Mundane it certainly isn’t, as a vital match in the race for fourth awaits, with victory over Blackburn ensuring we leapfrog Villa in that all-important Champions League spot prior to their clash with Spurs (who should we back for that one? Dilemmas dilemmas)!

So hopefully a straightforward victory at home to a team fighting against the drop...hang on, I just remembered, Big Sam is back!

Before I go, perhaps Arsène and the boys could do me a favour...spare us another roller coaster between now and May will you, as, at 22, embarrassingly older than the Club Captain and half of the first-team squad, I’d like there to be a few more matches left in me!