Arsenal behind after 42 seconds but Alexis Sánchez rescues point at PSG

3:31 PM   News   Comment  

Arsenal behind after 42 seconds but Alexis Sánchez rescues point at PSG

This was one of those occasions when what had initially appeared an unnecessarily risky team selection ended up feeling more like a masterstroke. Arsenal were overrun for long periods in Paris but still departed buoyed by the point pilfered from their trickiest tie of the section, and with David Ospina’s reputation as enhanced as Edinson Cavani’s was wrecked. The locals are growing used to their Uruguayan’s profligacy. Ospina, in contrast, has rarely asserted such a positive influence on his own team’s display.

In the context of the flurry of opportunities thwarted by his goalkeeper late on, either choked, blocked or parried to safety, Arsène Wenger could justify his policy, apparently laid down in pre‑season, that the Colombian will begin in Champions League ties. He had done the same last year only for Arsenal to succumb to Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos, where Ospina was culpable as the team wilted. Petr Cech was duly recalled against Bayern Munich. Yet, at Parc des Princes in a potentially daunting contest, the 28-year-old was a man inspired.

He sprang from his line to smother at the feet of those Paris Saint-Germain players marauding into the penalty area, whether Cavani or Serge Aurier. There were fine touches to deflect aside efforts from Ángel Di María, and even a willingness to charge from his box to nod away through-balls squeezed beyond Arsenal’s backline. Ospina achieved all this despite conceding after 42 seconds as his team rather dithered from the outset. Cavani had planted his header emphatically into the corner from Aurier’s glorious cross on the charge with Shkodran Mustafi apparently distracted by the presence of a second ball on the pitch, albeit on the distant touchline. The marking was more of an issue.

For a few, tantalising minutes, Cavani, a player who had shivered for so long in the shadow of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, must have rejoiced in the belief this would be finally be his coming of age as PSG’s central striker. He could certainly never have envisaged departing at the end haunted by the nightmarish memory of Ospina in his turquoise kit and that hellish flash of his fluorescent gloves. As Rio Ferdinand acknowledged in his role as a pundit, had Ibrahimovic featured in the Uruguayan’s stead, “Arsenal would have been run out of town”.

The sight of the ball continually falling to Cavani in front of goal almost felt cruel by the end. His best opportunity to exorcise his demons had come just after the half-hour mark as Nacho Monreal slid on to a Marco Verratti through-ball and succeeded only in prodding the ball away from Laurent Koscielny and into the striker’s path. He edged round the goalkeeper, for one of the only times all night, but was off balance as the ball ran across him and could only skewer the shot into the side-netting with the goal gaping. His evening deteriorated entirely thereafter. He looked a broken man at the final whistle.

Lionel Messi scores hat-trick in Barcelona’s 7-0 thrashing of Celtic

 Read more

There was a woeful control on his chest inside the six-yard box before the break, and a succession of one on ones where Ospina’s eagerness to charge out at pace seemed to provoke indecision in the forward’s approach. Whenever he had time to think, he panicked. The final miss, nine minutes from time, had the locals cursing wildly from the stands. Asked how he would rebuild the confidence of a player who finds himself in that position, Wenger said: “I’d tell him to keep looking for chances, and perhaps to relax a touch. He was actually good tonight, Cavani, and very effective in terms of his pressing. It would be interesting to see how much ground he covered and how many sprints he had.”

PSG needed more than mere industry. There is self-doubt at this club following the summer arrival of Unai Emery, and the departures of the charismatic Ibrahimovic and David Luiz. They had so yearned for a victory here to justify the manager’s appointment – as a figure apparently likelier to deliver a European trophy – in succession to Laurent Blanc, though Emery finished as rattled and unnerved by his team’s deficienciesas his players.

Their dismal finishing was always likely to hurt them in the end and, when Mesut Özil conjured a clever pass – one of his few eye-catching contributions all night – to find the excellent Alex Iwobi 12 minutes from time, the French were undone. The youngster’s shot was pushed away by Alphonse Areola but only as far as Alexis Sánchez, loitering ignored near the penalty shot. His finish was emphatic and Arsenal had their point.

The skirmishes became rather fractious from then on in, PSG irritated by Olivier Giroud’s presence with tempers duly boiling over in stoppage time. Marquinhos and Verratti squabbled with Giroud near the touchline and, while the exchanges were more playground than truly spiteful, the Hungarian official flashed second yellow cards to the Arsenal substitute and the Italian midfielder.

Both players appeared perplexed. Both will be absent for their team’s next fixture when Arsenal, fitness permitting, will retain Ospina. It will seem less of a risk second time round.

source: https://www.theguardian.com