The Gunners went to Monaco a couple of days ago with a near impossible task in their hands. They had to win on an away ground against a good team and that too by keeping a margin of three goals to make the quarters in the European Cup.
It was a no brainer that the management needed to start with the best players in the squad and thus, as an outsider, you would have imagined that Theo Walcott would feature in the starting line up as he is clearly a top class winger. But, surprisingly, the coaching staff and the main man in charge, Arsene Wenger, did not trust him to deliver and that was probably to do with the fact that he had not had much playing time off late.
He did make an appearance in that Monaco game later on for a few minutes and he even had a role to play in the second goal that Arsenal scored to get the aggregate scores levelled, but, despite that one little bit of contribution, he looked stingless in the substitute role. Those betting at marathonbet.com on him being the first to score were very disappointed.
So, perhaps not starting with him was the right call by the management.
The opposition team had employed a loaded defence and there was a lot of man marking going on there, but, with Walcott’s ability, you expect something special. It was not to be though.
The scores were stuck at 3-3 on aggregate as the final whistle was blown and with that, Monaco advanced ahead in Europe ending the dream of the Gunners who would be terribly disappointed having failed to make it through despite being so close. The betting at marathonbet.co.uk had been on the Gunners sqeuaking through.
Monaco got the advantage of scoring more away goals than the opposition. Playing at Emirates last month, they had scored three, while, at their own ground, they conceded only two and that was the difference at the end.
The Monaco players were only looking for damage control in the return leg. There was no real intent from them to score. They were putting all their efforts in defending and making sure that the Gunners did not get too many into the net.
