The Spanish media is now wondering why Arsenal sometimes struggle in big games.
Following the Gunners’ elimination from the Champions League last night, Sport features a story pointing out that Mikel Arteta’s side were knocked out by the ‘worst Bayern Munich of the decade’.
The newspaper points out that Arsenal fail to ‘live up to the challenge at key moments’, as they’re ‘incapable of emotionally’ dealing with those situations, and they lack the ‘competitor gene’.
We’ve all seen what happened with the Gunners’ Premier League campaign last season, and it seems that the results they had in the past week have drawn the European media’s attention to this particular issue.
‘Bukayo Saka’s handling on the last chance of the game perfectly defines Arsenal’s morale in big games. Four minutes had been added on and there were already more than twenty seconds on the clock. It was the last chance. So all the Gunners were waiting in the box – even Raya – for Saka to take a corner. Where did the ball go? Straight out. An execution that left a lot to be desired.’
Of course not everything is lost for Arsenal this season, as they’re just two points behind Manchester City in the Premier League. The problem is that last weekend’s loss to Aston Villa may have hurt the Gunners’ confidence, and we’ll see if they’ll manage to bounce back in the remaining fixtures.
The European media will be watching.
