Match date: 13 March 2013

A day after Barcelona completed their comeback against Milan, Arsenal hoped to do this same against Bayern Munich. It was to be a bit of a tougher task for Arsenal as they were away from home and need at least 3 goals to go through after conceding 3 at the Emirates.

Some suggested that Arsene Wenger was going to send out a weakened team as he felt they were very much out of the tie, but he put out what was close to the strongest side he could. Here’s what he put out along with Bayern’s:

Arsenal Presses Then Sits

Arsenal needed to get 3 goals due to their poor showing at the Emirates and so they had to push from the start. It took them only 3 minutes in to score, but in those 3 minutes, it was clear that they wanted an early goal as Arsene Wenger had his defense playing a high line and putting the Bayern Munich centre backs and midfield under pressure.

This was a good start for Arsenal and they may have wanted to push on, but they found it more and more difficult to keep the ball. Aaron Ramsey and Tomas Rosicky were very sloppy in their passing, consistently giving away the ball in poor areas, allowing Bayern to keep the ball for long periods.

As they continued to lose the ball, their high line and pressing of the Bayern Munich midfielders began to vanish and they sat too deep for a team that needed to get a huge result in the match. Far too many times Arsenal invited pressure by sitting deep or giving away the ball, though in the end, Bayern weren’t able to find an end product to their good possession.

Kroos Roams Free

One of the big problems for Arsenal, once they began sitting, was the amount of time that Toni Kroos had on the ball in Arsenal’s half. There were a number of times where he was 15 yards within Arsenal’s half and was able to turn, dribble, and find a pass.

Other than dropping so deep initially, a lot of Kroos’ freedom had to do with the lack of closing down by Santi Cazorla and Tomas Rosicky in their own half.

With Cazorla not tracking back and his lesser defensive qualities a liability anyway, Aaron Ramsey had to drift to the left side of the pitch to help out Kieran Gibbs. In the picture above, you’ll see Tomas Rosicky on the far right of the screen and at the top of the picture (the left side of the pitch) you’ll see Aaron Ramsey the deepest of those three Arsenal players with Gibbs and Santi Cazorla the two forward, with S. Cazorla just arriving and setting himself.

Bayern Munich were fairly poor in converting their chances, but Toni Kroos had a man of the match performance due to Arsenal not closing him down well. He had the second most touches by any player on the field (Lahm being the first), had two shots on goal, played 4 key passes and made 5 interceptions well up the pitch.

Bayern’s Woes

It was obviously a poor start from Bayern; conceding only 3 minutes into the match. The goal was a poor one too and a little unlucky. Alaba slipped as he turned to followed Rosicky’s pass to Walcott, but the poor defending came when Dante stepped to Walcott, as he had to do, but left Giroud free at the back post.

As the build up before the goal began, Dante had been tracking Giroud’s run and Javi Martinez was a free man in the middle. As Dante stepped to the Walcott, Martinez had a look and saw Giroud making a free run to the back post, and despite having the time to get to him, didn’t.

You can see in the picture above, Martinez is having a his look at Giroud, but continues his run toward the near post rather than trying to get in front of Giroud.

After the goal, Bayern settled into the game, keeping good possession partly due to their ability to do so and partly do to Arsenal dropping too deep as discussed above. However, Bayern were poor in their finishing and crossing. A usually pretty clinical Bayern side only had 5 of their 24 shots on target (Arsenal had 2 on target, both resulting in goals) and only completed 2 of their 25 crosses.

Arsenal’s Subs

At the 72nd minute, Arsene Wenger brought on Oxlade-Chamberlain for Walcott and Gervinho for Ramsey. It was an interesting change though, as Walcott had been Arsenal’s main outlet throughout the match as he was able to inject pace into their attacks and find the space behind Alaba when he went forward. His pace was especially helpful in the counter attacks (obviously Chamberlain could do the same), which Arsenal had to rely on as Bayern Munich controlled the game and committed numbers in attack.

Despite that though, the changes meant that Arsenal’s shape was going to change. Rosicky, who had a poor game, dropped into Ramsey’s spot with Gervinho going on the left and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right. With the subs on, Bayern again looked a little shaky on defense as Arsenal began to press higher up the pitch again, playing a higher defensive line as well. The pressure allowed them to get chances and they got the corner kicked that saw Koscienly score their second.

Other than the goal, Giroud had a half chance right after and Gervinho combined well with S. Cazorla to create an opportunity for himself that went just wide of Neuer’s far post.

Conclusion

Unfortunately for Arsenal, they weren’t able to take full advantage of Bayern Munich’s poor finishing and nerves towards the end of the match. Instead of going for a second goal right after scoring the first, they seemed too willing to sit back and hope to grab a second from counter attack rather than pressing and winning the ball higher up the pitch as they did after bringing on their subs in the second half.