Gazing into the Abyss: Bayern 10 Arsenal 2

What did we expect today? To go out of the Champions League. There was maybe a small part of me that felt a comeback might, just might, happen, but the odds were so long that it was basically a fantasy. Beating Bayern 4-0 at home was never really going to occur. And if you believe it could have happened, you're almost part of the problem. It's one thing to support the team; it's another to so blindly believe that the best might happen, that you ignore how bad things really are. Enabling is destructive.

The officials certainly changed the game. Had the penalty been given for the trip on Walcott in the first half, and we go in at 2-0, then maybe things might have been interesting. But they didn't. There isn't a conspiracy, it's just incompetence. Just like it was blind, mad incompetence to upgrade Koscielny's yellow to a red, and end the game. So what. Those are the breaks. Deal with it.

The real crime tonight was what happened to the team at 1-1. It's the difference between Arsene and the truly great managers of our time. Had this been a Ferguson managed team, the final result would have been 1-1, maybe 2-1. Why? He would have shut up shop, put his players behind the ball, and told them to grind out the rest of the game. Keep it boring. Keep it respectable. Focus on the battles you still might win.

Instead, we fell apart. Who knows what, if any, instructions were issued from the sideline. Maybe at 1-1 there was still some mad belief that we could get 4 goals and win it 5-1. The fact is there was no order. No semblance of sense. Just a bizarre, self-pitying collapse. No shape, no discipline. Players openly abdicating responsibility as the goals rained in. Sanchez trying to dribble it out before being dispossesed by Robben. Costa having enough time to light a cigar before scoring the third. Ozil not bothering to press properly for the fourth. Wide open spaces for the fifth.

I can't stress this enough. This is a total disgrace. A total disgrace. Teams get players sent off. It happens. The best teams show substance, passion and pride when they're backs are against the wall. You can lose with a semblance of honour. This was a team who couldn't be bothered; leaderless, rudderless, spineless. I'm watching clips of Sanchez laughing on the bench, and this is where we are.

The final result was the heaviest home defeat in Arsenal's European history. Bayern scored 10 (ten) goals against us in two legs.

It's over. It's been over for years. I'm sure we'll beat Lincoln and might even have a run at the FA Cup this year but please, please leave before this gets really ugly.

I read Gunnerblog's excellent article on Arseblog this week about why he's struggled to maintain his passion for blogging about Arsenal. I couldn't agree more. I started this blog a few days after Arsenal beat Real in 2006. That might not have been the best team in Arsenal's history, but it was an exciting one. The future seemed full of possibilities. Now all we've been left with is the abyss.

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.'

Gb