Arsenal earned a late draw with Bayer Leverkusen at the BayArena in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16. Draw away, win at home, advance. That’s the mantra. Mikel Arteta made a bold (but correct) decision to bring on Noni Madueke for Bukayo Saka midway through the second half and the move paid dividends. The speedy substitute jump-started the attack and he won the equalizing penalty for Kai Havertz to bury against his former club.
The 1-1 scoreline feels about right, although Bayer Leverkusen
really didn’t offer much going forward, particularly after going ahead. They didn’t offer much all game, honestly. They started out open enough but once Gabriel Martinelli rattled the crossbar after a sweeping Arsenal counter, the home side really shut up shop. They got scared. You can’t really blame them. It’s why Premier League teams don’t commit numbers forward and play open football against Arsenal. They know that the Gunners, more often than not, will make you pay.
Their set play at the start of the second half was their only attacking move of note. David Raya made an excellent save on the header but Arsenal conceded from the ensuing corner. It had to be Robert Andrich who scored for the home side, just had to be. The Leverkusen CB was extremely lucky to not be sent off five minutes into the match. The entire CBS halftime studio said it. His first foul, wrestling Viktor Gyokeres to the ground steps outside the box two minutes into the match was a clear yellow, correctly given. I had such high hopes for the referee after getting that call right.
A few minutes later, Andrich threw what was essentially a body check on the Arsenal striker — never looking for the ball, focused entirely on the man, and knocking him to the ground with a late, intentional, forceful shoulder through the chest that stopped Gyokeres making a run down the line. If the defender hadn’t been booked minutes earlier, it absolutely would have been a booking. That’s not a valid reason to not show a second yellow. It’s cowardly, poor refereeing. If an Arsenal player had done it and been sent off, y’all would be saying something like “so naive to make the second challenge, you can’t give the referee the opportunity to make that decision.”
It’s darkly amusing to me that after all the talk about Arsenal and set pieces, Bayer Leverkusen got their lead on a set piece that involved not a small amount of obstructing and holding Ebere Eze to stop him getting around the corner to pressure Andrich’s header at the back post. There was also more than a bit of trip too — the contact, whether it was or wasn’t enough for a foul, distracts from that part. You could even see that the Leverkusen attacker who helped Eze to the ground knew he might have been in trouble. He immediately looked to the referee and shook his finger to indicate he hadn’t committed a foul.
It’s a bit of a pot-kettle situation, I recognize that. But I can’t shake the feeling that if Arsenal score that goal, it takes much longer to confirm, at the very least. Maybe that’s a Premier League-Europe difference. The decision was also thrown into stark, frustrating contrast when before the taking of the Arsenal corner kick that was the last kick of the match, the referee booked Kai Havertz for being held by Alejandro Grimaldo. No, really. The Leverkusen defender had the Arsenal attacker wrapped up. Kai Havertz literally did not do anything other than stand there. Both players were cautioned. The referee then immediately blew for a foul against Arsenal once the kick was taken. It was bizarre and in opposition to how he officiated a pivotal earlier moment in the match.
Arsenal can only focus on what they can control, and they could have done better on the second half kickoff. Mikel Arteta said as much after the match. He was not happy with how his team were caught unaware by Leverkusen’s kickoff plays. Arteta told the media he had cautioned his team to be on the lookout and showed them video of the German side’s tendencies. It’s really poor to concede such a quality chance when you were specifically warned against that specific danger.
The Gunners also could have been more dynamic in attack. Some of that is down to Leverkusen being more than happy to bunker down and lump long balls towards a lone striker. Some of it, however, is on Arsenal. Bukayo Saka put in one of his worst performances in an Arsenal shirt. Time and again, he dribbled into defenders and lost the ball. Gabriel Martinelli wasn’t much better. My enduring image of the Brazilian from today’s match is him circling back with the ball, dribbling it across the middle, and passing it backwards. He must have done that at least three times. I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that neither of them, Saka in particular, is likely to be as poor in the second leg.
The contrast between that pair and Noni Madueke was striking. The substitute played with speed and challenged his defenders. I was midway through making that observation when Madueke drove into the box and won the penalty. The call could have gone either way. Malik Tillman unquestionably caught Madueke’s foot. With that contact and the call being given on the field, I really didn’t see any way that VAR would overturn the decision. But I also don’t think you’d get that call with VAR if it wasn’t given on the pitch. It’s nice to come out on the right side of one of those. On the other hand, if you thought the penalty award was soft, it balances out Leverkusen’s goal being scored by a player who shouldn’t have been on the pitch. It all evens out in the end, right?
Back to Madueke and pace. His willingness to use his speed, dribble at defenders, and force the issue was a refreshing change for the Arsenal attack. Minutes before Madueke won the penalty, the ball came to Gabriel Martinelli 1-v-1 with his defender, who was on a yellow card, closer to the box. The Brazilian slowed down. That allowed another defender to slide over to help. Martinelli had to recycle the ball.
Why not drive at the defender? Use your speed. Push him back towards his own box. Force him to get the tackle right and risk a second yellow card and / or a penalty if he doesn’t. The Gunners made the same mistake with Robert Andrich in the first half and throughout the game. He was clearly on his last warning after the second foul on Gyokeres inside the first five minutes. Go at him! Every time! Force the ball to the man he’s marking. If he gets close, he risks a second yellow. If he falls off, you have more time and space to attack.
It was frustrating. The whole evening was frustrating. It wasn’t a bad performance from Arsenal, but it wasn’t a particularly good one, either. There’s a bit too much of that going around for my liking, particularly as the business end of the season ramps up. Today’s draw is fine. Arsenal have the second leg at home to take care of things — that’s their reward for being so good in the League Phase. But they’ve gotta shape up. Nervous times, to be sure.
