As Manchester City fans sang it “was just like Wembley”, just a motley number of the Arsenal fans at the half-empty Emirates roused themselves to respond to the taunting.
They had given up! Arsenal for the second time in four days were showing they were not to be classed with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, and that would have hurt more than most.
Where do they go from here? A clearly lost manager combined with a board unable to take the right decision for this historical club. A club with the emblem of a canon seemed to have no more bullets to fire.
The weather on Thursday night was below freezing and the Arsenal players did nothing to warm their fans. Even new January recruit, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang looks lost already, unable to dispatch a penalty past Ederson.
The stats would say at the end of the first half both teams had four shots on target but City had three goals while Arsenal had zilch. And zilch is where the Gunners are.
At the post-match press conference, Arsene Wenger blamed the poor performance on low confidence levels. “I knew that the first half could have been difficult for us because we came out of Sunday’s game with a low confidence level. They came back with a very positive mindset and that’s why they took advantage of every defensive weakness we showed in the first half.
“At the end of the day, I must say we lost against a top-quality team who at the moment are the best team in the country. On top of that, the combination of their quality plus the fact that they’re high in confidence and we’re low in confidence played a big part in the game tonight.
“After that, in the second half we came out and dominated well in the first 20 minutes. We needed the penalty to go in to get a bit of momentum, so that was the killer of the game after that.”
In all of the above, does Wenger sound confident of having the ability to solve the myriad challenges that bedevil the Gunners? Definitely not!
After 21 years in charge, it is hard to say this but surely Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have to part ways as the Boys 2 Men classic rings in my ears – “Although we’ve come to the end of the road; still I can’t let go, it’s unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you…
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