Sterling fails to shine as Arsenal’s Champions League draw looms

Sterling fails to shine as Arsenal’s Champions League draw looms 

Here’s Ian Mills with his latest Three Things We Learned after Arsenal’s Champions League  win at Girona 

We secured a top three finish in the Champions League ‘League’ phase with a win in Spain in our final game of the opening eight fixtures.

Here is Ian Mills’ latest Three Things We Learned series piece below:-

1 – Nwaneri keeps on getting better –

A first Champions League start and a first goal for our wonderfully gifted Hale End graduate with the man of the match award to boot.

He has now scored in every competition he has played in this campaign and took his overall goalscoring tally to six so far with a great strike which was bent into the bottom corner for what tuned out to the winner in this entertaining clash.

He has taken to the right-wing position with aplomb and already offers a genuine goal threat in every game he plays.

At 17 he is clearly only going to get better and what a great time all us Gooners are going to have watching him blossom into a major first team star.

2 – Impressive Champions League form offers a chance of silverware –

Whilst finishing in third place in the League format was great to see, our record from eight games was really good, with six wins, a draw and a single defeat.

We conceded only three times and kept five clean sheets in total. While some of our fixtures were not overly entertaining (a fair summation of quite a lot of games in this new format) our strong defence helped to see us over the line and is the foundation upon which our Champions League hopes are built this season.

3 – Loan players fail to shine once more –

When we were awarded our second penalty of the evening, I assumed that either Martin Odegaard or Kai Havertz would take the spot kick.

You would have got long odds on Raheem Sterling being most Gooners first choice, and I was not at all confident he would score.

As it turned out, it was a reasonable save (albeit a good height for the Girona goalkeeper) and the taker looked crestfallen.

Whatever his confidence levels before the penalty, they are certain to have nosedived further still.

While Sterling was struggling in attack, Neto was having a debut to forget in goal. Having been caught out way off his line for Girona’s goal he then inexplicably tried to save it while out of his area.

I accept he has warmed our bench all season so far which is never an easy thing to do, however it is to be hoped that the injury that kept David Raya of the matchday squad is not too serious and that he can return for the crucial with Manchester City at the weekend.

The bid for Ollie Watkins shows that the club have money to spend on them right type of forward – let’s hope can either sign him or someone else to help us score the goals we are going to need for the remainder of the season ahead.