Arsenal vs BATE Borisov: Don’t even worry about it

Arsenal were defeated in Belarus by BATE Borisov in the first leg, and if nothing else came of this, at least now we know what’s ahead.

Arsenal were expected to win and win handily against BATE Borisov, no matter that the match was in Belarus, and thus in a place that the Gunners haven’t had a lot of success at recently – AKA, it was an away match.

The theme on the day was wastefulness, which, again is just another way that the club shot themselves in the foot. They amassed sixteen shots, but only placed three of them on target.

It wasn’t even about the chance creation, either. Sead Kolasinac created seven chances all by himself, as he dominated that facet of the game, and another three came from Henrikh Mkhitaryan, with a few odd chances scattered about the rest of the starting XI and substitutes as well.

But no matter the number of chances, it didn’t seem to matter, because nothing could stand up to the wastefulness of this club, not just in not finishing, but in not holding on to the ball.

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Take Alex Iwobi, for instance. Didn’t create a single chance, didn’t land a single shot on target, but surrendered possession eleven times on his own, getting dispossessed twice and taking nine poor touches.

Mkhitaryan added another seven, though at least he made his wastefulness worth it, as he had arguably then best chance to score of the match and created three chances of his own.

Denis Suarez came on and gave it away four times, Alexandre Lacazette gave it up another four times. It just wasn’t a very tidy match. In fact, only four Gunners didn’t hand possession away in one way or another – Granit Xhaka, Laurent Koscielny, Shkodran Mustafi and Petr Cech.

This wastefulness is inexcusable, and the only positive to come from the match, in all honestly, is that the deficit is simple enough to overcome – win 2-0 at home and wa-la, all of this is going to be forgotten, right?

It’s not an excuse, and it’s a huge sign of things to come, a warning sign, but going back to the Emirates, there’s no reason to think that we won’t still overturn the tie and move on to the next round.

Especially when you give us a week to dwell on this result and how frustrating it was. Count on it, the return leg won’t be so pretty for BATE Borisov.