Ray Parlour was “disappointed” about the Arsenal exit from the Europa League at the hands of Villarreal, insisting that this is “not enough”.
The former Arsenal midfielder felt Mikel Arteta’s side were fortunate to return from the away leg only a goal down and having scored a vital away goal but felt no one took the game ‘by the scruff of the neck’ at home.
With the Gunners ninth in the Premier League – and only four games left to play – their hopes of playing in Europe next season are quickly fading.
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And Parlour feels the side’s inability to get results when they’re not playing well has cost them dearly this season.
It should have been three or four nil [to Villarreal] in the first leg
Parlour told TalkSport after the 2-1 aggregate defeat.
They’d had a man sent off, then they were 2-0 up. Arsenal got a goal out of nothing with a penalty, which was a bit dubious the way he went down Saka but he got them back in the game.
So come on, you’ve done the hard bit now. You’ve got the away goal, let’s really go for it at home.
That’s what was the most disappointing thing, for me, the manner of how they went out of the competition – it wasn’t good enough.
Mikel Arteta is apologising… you’ve got to have players on the pitch taking the game by the scruff of the neck.
Come on this is a massive game for us, this is our future to get into European football next year – I know they’ve got to beat Manchester United in the final but it gives you a chance.
When a manager picks a team, you cross that white line… you can’t rely on managers. They can make substitutions at right moments in games but it’s down to the players who are paid lots of money to say, “Right this is how we win the game today”.
It’s not going to be pretty but this is how we win the game. There’s loads of occasions I’ve played in games when we didn’t play well but we managed to get results out of nothing.
I can’t see this group of players doing that. When they play poorly, they get beat. When they play really well, they win the game. There’s no in between.