Arsenal continue to find ever more outlandish ways to embellish an extremely well-worn theme. Did anybody really doubt that they would win here at Monaco? It was almost written in the stars after the 3-1 first-leg defeat at the Emirates Stadium. But yet again, it was not enough.
The London club’s travelling fans headed home with the familiar sense that their players had not disgraced themselves; that they had held their heads high; that they had played well. It is no mean feat to win at this bizarre little ground. Monaco last lost here in September of last year and they are notoriously difficult to break down.
But after Milan 2012 and Munich 2013, it was another dose of glorious failure for Arsène Wenger and his players, although it has surely passed the point where there is too much glory in these sorts of results. Particularly not against this Monaco team. They are opposition that Arsenal, frankly, should be beating and Wenger had to confront the harsh truth that, over the two legs, they had mucked this up.
This was a night when Olivier Giroud almost atoned for his first-leg horror show and he was supported by his attacking team-mates, none more so than Mesut Özil. Arsenal needed three goals and they so nearly got them, with Giroud close to the decisive one on 84 minutes.
But it was also a night when the sense of disappointment felt even sharper than any of the other last‑16 exits. Once again, the defeat was sparked by the events of the first leg and how Wenger must be ruing Monaco’s last-gasp third goal at the Emirates through the substitute Yannick Ferreira Carrasco. Arsenal could not get the better of Champions League history. No team has ever overturned a two-goal deficit from the first leg at home.
Wenger strikes nobody as a gambler. He had joked on the eve of the tie that in seven years as the Monaco manager, he had never walked up the hill to the famous Monte Carlo casino. But his selection reflected his position in the last-chance saloon. He went for it, with five attack-minded starters. Santi Cazorla may be a deeper-sitting midfielder these days but he is fired by creative impulses. When Aaron Ramsey replaced Francis Coquelin on 63 minutes, it was all-out attack.
The balance for Arsenal always looked likely to be difficult, particularly as Monaco are built for the counterattack. They were happy to play in their normal manner, never mind the first-leg score line, with nine men behind the ball when not in possession and sometimes 10, when João Moutinho dropped back. They make no apologies if the entertainment value is low. They had little of the ball and no shots on target.
If this had shaped up as a big night, then the setting felt vaguely surreal. “Like Nowhere Else,” read the slogan on the Monaco team bus, and the advertising hot shots have certainly nailed that one. The stadium has the feel of a Dubai mall, while its labyrinthine underground network of car parks and tunnels is disorientating.
It can seat roughly half of the 38,000 people who reside in the principality, although it is difficult to detect too much passion for the club here. Tickets had been placed on general sale; Monaco cannot sell out even for a Champions League knockout tie. Arsenal’s official allocation stood at 1,200 but hundreds of additional travelling supporters had been able to get into the home areas. For the celebrity spotters, Bono was in the crowd. So were his U2 band mates.
Monaco’s gameplan seemed to be to chalk off little blocks of time. Every five minutes, they moved closer to their first quarter-final since 2003-04 – the season they went all the way to the final but lost to José Mourinho’s Porto. They did not need to make the game, and they did not, although they had some joy on the counterattack as the tie became stretched in the second half.
Arsenal judged it nicely. After a slow first 10 minutes, they got on to the front foot and took control. Giroud bristled with aggression and determination; Danny Welbeck was sensational in bursts while Cazorla and Özil looked to drive the team forward. Arsenal asked plenty of questions of the excellent Monaco centre-halves, Aymen Abdennour and Wallace. They might have led by more at the interval.
Giroud’s goal fired the optimist in every Arsenal supporter and it invited plenty of “What if?” questions. Never mind any reflections on the first-leg aberrations. What if Wenger’s team could score the second? They flirted with it, with Özil particularly close. Then it came, and Arsenal hearts pounded some more. Wenger’s introduction of Theo Walcott added yet another attacking dimension but it was Ramsey who punished Layvin Kurzawa’s shocking lapse.
When Laurent Koscielny levelled the scores on aggregate at Bayern in 2013, there were five minutes of the tie remaining for Arsenal to pursue the winner. Here, they had 11 minutes. There were whistles from the home crowd when the board then showed five minutes of stoppage time.
It was drama of the highest order. But when the full-time whistle went, it was Arsenal’s players that slumped to the turf in anguish. Monaco’s relief knew no bounds.
