Giroud – Why my saved header was the turning point

Yet again, Arsenal suffered a gut-wrenching loss in the UEFA Champions League. Drawn against arguably the best team in the world, the Gunners stood toe to toe with Barcelona for most of the game but were undone by two crucial mistakes.

For 70 minutes of the game, Arsenal equaled, if not bettered Barcelona. Arsene Wenger’s team were tactically sound and even created some excellent chances to score, none more so than Olivier Giroud’s header.

Arsenal began to gain ascendancy in the second half and had a chance to score if not for a superb save from Marc Andre Ter-Stegen. The German goalkeeper saved Olivier Giroud’s header low to his right to keep the score 0-0, a moment Giroud told Arsenal Player, was crucial in the game.

It’s possibly the turning point.

I had a duel with the defender and I think that I headed the ball well but the keeper did very well.

We were not cautious enough of their counter-attack [afterwards], which is a model counter-attack, and then they finished it well. We couldn’t score in the first half after we played well on the counter-attack and were dangerous.

Moments after Giroud’s header, Barcelona poured down the other end and were punished by Lionel Messi. To make matters worse, Arsenal then conceded a penalty later on to make it 2-0, which will make it hard to overturn in the second leg.

We couldn’t finish our hard work and it’s disappointing because at the end of the day we’re 2-0 down and our chances of qualifying are very small. There’s a lot of disappointment.

I said before the game that we needed to be cautious if we could not win the game and not concede goals to keep our chances high for the second leg. In Barcelona it is very, very difficult to win, so we can have regrets after [the first leg] because we didn’t finish our counter-attacks.