So, another Arsenal slipup in the Champions League, with the team failing to deal with the slightest amount of pressure and crumbling quicker than a cookie in the process.
Arsene Wenger might like to big up his team before every season, but the fact that this keeps happening to every single team of his, time and again, is down to him, and there are only so many excuses that will work.
Arsenal were quite poor again, failing to show that European bottle when they needed to, and as a result succumbing to a Dinamo Zagreb side they should have been cruising past, even if the match was away from home.
Wenger and the Arsenal players will probably point to the Olivier Giroud red card, which left the away side having to play with ten men for 50 minutes of the match, but, what cannot be masked is another listless display from the English Premier League club.
Even before Giroud was sent off, harshly it must be said, Dinamo Zagreb had taken the lead, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain making the mistake of letting his man go, and then seeing his misery compounded when a rebound came off him and went right back into the net.
If Arsenal were to make a comeback, or at least leave with a point – which would not have been too bad, considering they were down to ten men – they needed a strong second half showing, but that was not to be as a complete lapse in concentration from a setpiece allowed Junior Fernandes a free header.
Theo Walcott came on and made it 2-1 on 79 minutes, but this was a match that Arsenal deserved to lose, purely for the manner in which they caved in the moment Dinamo Zagreb applied the pressing tactics.
With players like Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez on the pitch, this Arsenal side should not get ruffled when pressed, but as Liverpool showed in the Premier League game a couple of weeks ago, and in this match on Wednesday, Wenger's men just seem to lose their bearings a little when pressure is applied on the ball.
Arsenal are, of course, not out of contention from Group F, because this is just the opening game of the Champions League, but with Bayern Munich also in the same group, Wenger and his side can ill-afford another such night.
