It’s safe to say most did not expect Arsenal to have much trouble against BATE Borisov in their Europa League round of 32 tie. The Belarusian club stunned the Gunners in the first leg of their Europa League tie in arguably the worst result of the Unai Emery era. The Belarusian side played against Arsene Wenger’s Gunners last year and were outmatched, losing their home group stage game 4-2, and then got smoked in London by a 6-0 scoreline.
However, neither result would be in the offing today as Stanislav Dragun scored in the 45th minute for BATE and Unai Emery’s men failed to respond with a goal of their own in a 1-0 defeat. Arsenal conceded a poor goal on the stroke of half time to go 1-0 down away in the Europa League yesterday evening, a goal that didn’t go down well with the fans.
It’s not been a convincing Gunners display by any means, with BATE clearly sensing an opportunity to spring an upset on their opponents. Stansilav Dragun headed in from a set-piece, getting between Arsenal’s defence far too easily and also beating goalkeeper Petr Cech.
To make matters worse for Arsenal, Alexandre Lacazette saw red in the 85th minute, meaning the star man will miss out on the second leg.
The good news for Emery and the Gunners is that this was just the first leg, and it is still likely they will turn around the deficit when the sides meet in London next week.
But in the meantime, Twitter was not kind to Petr Cech as Arsenal fans blames him for conceding such a cheap goal. It’s the Gunners ‘keeper that gets much of the stick on Twitter after the half time whistle as AFC fans bemoan going a goal down in the game they should have won with ease.
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