Arsene Wenger felt we were made to endure a disastrous final 25 minutes as we lost 5-1 to Bayern Munich in Allianz Arena on Wednesday night.
The boss faced the assembled media after the final whistle - and here's what he had to say:
on the game…
It was a strange game, because I feel in the first half we played quite well. We had some good chances just before half-time. After, we got a few blows - the first to Koscielny, and then we conceded two goals in minutes 53 and 56. On the second goal we were really [let down] because it was a corner for us, we had five players in the box and there were two balls on the pitch when they started again. The real problem we faced was after the third goal, because we lost our organisation and we looked mentally very jaded. From that moment on, the last 25 minutes were a nightmare for us because we looked like we had no response.
on why Koscielny going off had such an effect…
If you ask me would I have loved to have kept Laurent Koscielny on the pitch, I’d say ‘yes’. After that, it’s difficult to measure the real impact. We have to cope with the result. No matter what we say now, it will be turned in a way that is detrimental to us, because we had an extremely bad result tonight.
on why the players looked mentally jaded in a game of this importance…
I think it was difficult to swallow the two goals after minutes 53 and 56. I think we have to analyse that, but it looks like that from outside. We lost our organisation, we lost our centre back. But after the third one it was a combination of [mentality] and organisation. Before that, we controlled them quite well.
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