Arsène Wenger felt the turn of the knife after Arsenal had once again come up narrowly short in the Champions League as the Monaco manager, Leonardo Jardim, accused him of showing disrespect.
Arsenal won 2-0 at the Stade Louis II in the last-16 second leg but it was not enough to prevent going out on away goals after their 3-1 first-leg defeat at the Emirates Stadium three weeks ago. Following exits at the same stage to Barcelona, Milan and Bayern Munich twice in the previous four years, Wenger said that this one had hurt him the most.
Wenger’s homecoming to the team he had previously managed for seven years turned sour, with Jardim accusing Arsenal of having been complacent against a team they had been expected to beat. He also revealed he had refused to shake Wenger’s hand after the full-time whistle, to return a perceived snub after the first leg. “In the first leg, when I wanted to thank Arsène and shake his hand, it’s true that Arsène didn’t shake my hand, so even though Monaco did everything to make life comfortable for Arsenal tonight, I decided not to thank him,” Jardim said. “I think it was disrespectful. Right now, we’re celebrating and we think Arsenal did not show enough respect during the first leg.
“Arsenal were really happy to play Monaco as we were supposed to be one of the weakest teams. We qualified from pot four. All the teams in the last 16 wanted to play against Monaco. Maybe Arsenal thought they had qualified already.”
Not surprisingly, Wenger cut a frustrated figure. He had rounded on the Norwegian referee, Svein Oddvar Moen, at half-time as he felt several decisions had gone against his team, and he sang from a very familiar hymn sheet after the full-time whistle.
“I felt the performance was enough tonight but it was a very difficult task,” Wenger said. “At half-time, the game could have been over with the chances we created. Overall, we pay for the fact that in the first game, we did not produce the performance we wanted. Monaco played at home here, they have zero shots on target and yet go to the quarter-final.”
Wenger was asked whether this last-16 exit had been the most disappointing. “Yes,” he replied. “I would take it separately from the other years. I am very disappointed to go out but there are lots of positive in the game. The overall situation is disappointing. If you just look at the game tonight it is positive for us. This game was on line with what we did recently.
“If you look at the numbers, we had a 98% chance to be out but we did fight and produce the game we wanted. I felt some players were a bit jaded offensively because we have given a lot on Saturday [against West Ham United] and in the second half we lacked a bit of freshness to finish the game off.”
Wenger stated the obvious when he said the tie had been lost at the Emirates, although he disputed the notion Monaco had been much the superior team. “People overanalysed the match in a positive way because if you look at the stats again, they did not dominate the game but they played really well on the counter and we were not cautious enough. After the first goal, we were not patient enough,” he said.
“If you take a look at the shots on target over the two games, they were well rewarded and were very clinical. They really surprised us in the first leg when we were too sure of ourselves on the night. Football is not a fairytale. It is a matter of being realistic and being clinical, and maybe a bit lucky as well.”
Laurent Koscielny caught the mood when he lamented Arsenal’s inability to play consistently over the 180 minutes. “We say same thing every year,” the central defender said. “Our first game is catastrophic. We have to put it right – play well in two games.”
Aaron Ramsey added: “We have always played Bayern Munich, Barcelona, teams like that, and no disrespect to Monaco but we thought we had a really good opportunity of qualifying and we gave ourselves a tough test from the first game. We came here and have nearly done it but that seems to be the case every year.”
In the night’s other Champions League last-16 game, Atlético Madrid required a 3-2 penalty shootout victory to overcome Bayer Leverkusen at the Vicente Calderón after a 1-0 scoreline made it 1-1 on aggregate after extra time.