Arsène Wenger hurting but Monaco’s Jardim accuses Arsenal of disrespect
Arsène Wenger felt the turn of the knife after Arsenal had once again come up narrowly short in the Champions League as the Monaco manager, Leonardo Jardim, accused him of showing disrespect.
Arsenal won 2-0 at the Stade Louis II in the last-16 second leg but it was not enough to prevent going out on away goals after their 3-1 first-leg defeat at the Emirates Stadium three weeks ago.
Following exits at the same stage to Barcelona, Milan and Bayern Munich
twice in the previous four years, Wenger said that this one had hurt
him the most.
Wenger’s homecoming to the team he had previously managed for seven
years turned sour, with Jardim accusing Arsenal of having been
complacent against a team they had been expected to beat. He also
revealed he had refused to shake Wenger’s hand after the full-time
whistle, to return a perceived snub after the first leg. “In the first
leg, when I wanted to thank Arsène and shake his hand, it’s true that
Arsène didn’t shake my hand, so even though Monaco did everything to
make life comfortable for Arsenal tonight, I decided not to thank him,”
Jardim said. “I think it was disrespectful. Right now, we’re celebrating
and we think Arsenal did not show enough respect during the first leg.
“Arsenal were really happy to play Monaco as we were supposed to be
one of the weakest teams. We qualified from pot four. All the teams in
the last 16 wanted to play against Monaco. Maybe Arsenal thought they had qualified already.”
Not surprisingly, Wenger cut a frustrated figure. He had rounded on
the Norwegian referee, Svein Oddvar Moen, at half-time as he felt
several decisions had gone against his team, and he sang from a very
familiar hymn sheet after the full-time whistle.
“I felt the performance was enough tonight but it was a very
difficult task,” Wenger said. “At half-time, the game could have been
over with the chances we created. Overall, we pay for the fact that in
the first game, we did not produce the performance we wanted. Monaco
played at home here, they have zero shots on target and yet go to the
quarter-final.”
Wenger was asked whether this last-16 exit had been the most
disappointing. “Yes,” he replied. “I would take it separately from the
other years. I am very disappointed to go out but there are lots of
positive in the game. The overall situation is disappointing. If you
just look at the game tonight it is positive for us. This game was on
line with what we did recently.
“If you look at the numbers, we had a 98% chance to be out but we did
fight and produce the game we wanted. I felt some players were a bit
jaded offensively because we have given a lot on Saturday [against West Ham United] and in the second half we lacked a bit of freshness to finish the game off.”
Wenger stated the obvious when he said the tie had been lost at the
Emirates, although he disputed the notion Monaco had been much the
superior team. “People overanalysed the match in a positive way because
if you look at the stats again, they did not dominate the game but they
played really well on the counter and we were not cautious enough. After
the first goal, we were not patient enough,” he said.
“If you take a look at the shots on target over the two games, they
were well rewarded and were very clinical. They really surprised us in
the first leg when we were too sure of ourselves on the night. Football
is not a fairytale. It is a matter of being realistic and being
clinical, and maybe a bit lucky as well.”
Laurent Koscielny caught the mood when he lamented Arsenal’s
inability to play consistently over the 180 minutes. “We say same thing
every year,” the central defender said. “Our first game is catastrophic.
We have to put it right – play well in two games.” Monaco celebrate after their Champions League triumph over Arsenal. Photograph: Lionel Cironneau/AP
Aaron Ramsey added: “We have always played Bayern Munich, Barcelona,
teams like that, and no disrespect to Monaco but we thought we had a
really good opportunity of qualifying and we gave ourselves a tough test
from the first game. We came here and have nearly done it but that
seems to be the case every year.”
In the night’s other Champions League last-16 game, Atlético Madrid required a 3-2 penalty shootout victory to overcome Bayer Leverkusen at the Vicente Calderón after a 1-0 scoreline made it 1-1 on aggregate after extra time.
