The Athletic FC

Welcome to the Athletic FFC podcast with me, Ayo Akim Woleri.

In a battle of two of Europe's heavyweight, it was Arsenal who came out on top.

So how much damage does a first defeat of the season do to Vincent Company's buying?

All right, in with us today.

We've got our German football writer, Seb, Stafford Bloch.

We've also got Bundesliga commentator, Kev Hatchard as well.

Right, Arsenal, three won victors at the Emirates, Seb.

You wrote about the impact Vincent Company has had on Bayern.

They went 18 games unbeaten ahead of this visit to the Emirates. Is it a setback them getting beaten at the Emirates in the Champions League? Because they're still third in the league phase. Yeah, I think setback is quite a strong word because 17 wins and one draw in that unbeaten sequence. And I think for 45 minutes, maybe 50 minutes, this is a really

good game. It's a really close game. Certainly probably the closest I've seen anyone get to

Arsenal this season. And then a couple of individual mistakes. So that's probably how I'd

categorize it by and letdown, really, by Diopon, his slightly misplaced pass out of defense,

which is a great shame because Ippan, he's been absolutely sensational for a year. He's been far and away Byrne's best defender, so just really unlucky. And then the Manuel Noir moment, which I don't know. I'm not sure if Kevin will agree with me on this, but it feels like it's been coming. Noyes had a of roping moments from set pieces before the international

break and just after it, Byron conceded four goals from set pieces in their last two Bundesliga

games, which is kind of alarming. So to see Arsenal examine them fiercely from those set pieces

is not a surprise. So setback, no, a bit annoying, I think. And also it left me with, and we were talking about this before we started recording, it left me with a kind of a curiosity about what this game looks like once Jamal Mascuilar and Alfonso Davis get back. And chances are these teams see each other again in the spring when the championship league knockout stages start for real. So let's see, let's see what happens.

I think it's really interesting.

The narrative that will come out of this, I think, is that buying a well short of Arsenal.

I don't see it that way necessarily.

If you listen to the way that Declan Rice talked about buying after the game,

he said that Arsenal mentally had to do so much work just to live with them

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