Arsene Wenger rips into Gunners for ‘naive’ performance against Barcelona

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was left frustrated after watching his side suffer a 2-0 first leg defeat at the hands of current Champions League holders FC Barcelona on Tuesday night. Wenger also rued the fact that Arsenal wasted the scoring chances that came their way.

Visiting goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was mainly a spectator in the first period, when he was often the only player in his half, cutting a lonely figure as far up the pitch as around the centre circle. “I feel that in the final third at the moment we are missing something”.

“We know that we have taken advantage but you never know what could happen in Champions League games. We will not go there and have absolutely no chance”, he added.

“Similar to Monaco (in last season’s last 16), when it looked like we could win this game we gave it away”.

“One thing we couldn’t afford to give them was counter attacks because they are very risky”.

Despite an admiral defensive effort from Arsenal to keep the current European champions at bay, Barcelona doubled their lead just 12 minutes later when a late tackle from Mathieu Flamini caught an on-running Messi in the Arsenal box.

“They are better than us and I believe everybody knows that, but I believe we could have won the game… if we had kept the discipline until the end”.

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“I thought we did really well until the first goal”.

“Instead we took more risks and then they scored”.

Barca continued to dominate possession after the break and we gradually began pushing higher and higher up the field, and unfortunately it ended up costing us the opening goal. We put a lot of energy in the game and technically we were very average. They are better than us.

“Everyone who knows about football knows you need a first half like this in order to have a second like the one we had”, said Enrique.

“I felt there was room to beat them tonight, that is the biggest regret I have”, Wenger told reporters.