Europa League: Arsenal lose in Cologne but still progress

FC Cologne 1 Arsenal 0

Momentum matters in sport. It builds confidence, cultivates a winning mentality and causes opponents to take note. Which is why Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat to Cologne wasn’t an irrelevance.

Five days after producing a sumptuous display of football to beat Tottenham 2-0, the Gunners lost to the weakest side in the Bundesliga in their penultimate game of the Europa League.

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As it turned out it didn’t much matter in terms of the tournament because the other group game between Red Star Belgrade and Bate Borisov finished goalless. This means Arsenal will go through to the knockout phase and finish the group stage as champions, despite gifting Cologne only their second victory in 17 matches this season.

“You feel you have done the job to finish top of the group,” said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. “We now play our final game at home against Bate Borisov without much at stake, other than the fact that we want to win the game. It’s what we wanted.”

But this was a missed opportunity for Arsenal to build on the belief engendered by the impressive win against Tottenham.

Instead a second-string team passed up the chance to stake a claim for a regular starting spot as the north London side suffered their fifth defeat of the season.

Mohamed Elneny, Olivier Giroud and Jack Wilshere all failed to rise above the mediocrity. Perhaps the only positives for Wenger to emerge from the dispiriting 90 minutes was a lively 45 minutes from Danny Welbeck on his return from injury and another encouraging display from Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

In fairness to the likes of Giroud, it must be hard to gear yourself up for a trip to Cologne in the Europa League when earlier in the month he was playing for France in front of 80,000 fans at the Stade de France.

Still, the 1-0 defeat – the goal was a 62nd-minute second-half penalty by Sehrou Guirassy – did at least allow Wenger to dip into his Big Book of Excuses.

“Our attitude was good but it took us time to get into the pace of the game and the pitch was a little bit of a handicap tonight,” said the Arsenal boss.

As for the spot-kick, awarded when Mathieu Debuchy fouled Guirassy, needless to say it should never have been awarded.

“We lost a game where they basically had one shot on goal and honestly it was not a penalty at all,” moaned the Frenchman.

Everton 1 Atalanta 5

There will be plenty of moaning on Merseyside this morning as Everton fans come to terms with another humiliating Europa League defeat.

Already eliminated from the competition, the Toffees were thrashed 5-1 at Goodison Park by the Italian side Atalanta.

Mercifully for the Everton faithful, only 17,431 bothered to turn up, the club’s second-lowest attendance ever for a European fixture. Those who did take their seats witnessed a shameful display.

“It’s not nice to lose games and the manner we lost it is very disappointing and upsetting,” said striker Wayne Rooney.

“There’s nothing much more to add. We wanted to win the game, we haven’t and that was a hurtful defeat for us.”