Jamie Carragher told CBS Sports on Paramount+ (06/05/21 at 10:35 pm) that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ‘hardly touched the ball’ in the first half as Arsenal went crashing out of Europe.
Crashing out of Europe and right back down to earth for this Arsenal side that simply isn’t good enough to grace one of Europe’s biggest stages.
From Aubameyang’s twin brother turning up this season to Arteta making tactical mistake after tactical mistake, it has been a car-crash season for those in North London.
Ex-Premier League defender, Carragher, felt that Arteta got it wrong from the off by playing ‘too many attacking players’, which meant that Aubameyang hardly got a sniff.
“You come to the second leg and you see all the attacking players on the pitch,” said Carragher. “And that might excite Arsenal thinking ‘we are “going for it’.
“But sometimes you can have too many attacking players on the pitch because you cannot get the ball back. And that was the problem.
“Aubameyang hardly touched the ball in the first half because there was no one in midfield to win the ball back and give them the ball, so again, I thought he (Arteta) got it massively wrong again (tactically), really and almost played into Villarreal’s hands.”
If Arsenal had progressed through to the final then they would have just papered over the cracks.
But many have known how abject this Arsenal side are for a long while now and Arteta may take the hits, but in truth, there are bigger problems than San Sebastián-born coach.
Arsenal needs a clean up from top to bottom, and in truth, given who is running the club that might not even happen.
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