A defeat is a defeat, but Thursday night’s one in Cologne was less damaging than most.
We still secured top spot in our Europa League group despite falling to a second-half penalty. And although we weren’t close to our free-flowing best, there were some bright performances.
Arsene Wenger picked out a few of them after the game:
“I felt that Ainsley Maitland-Niles was very good, in the first half especially,” he said. “When we had problems to create dangerous situations, he did very well.
“Reiss Nelson came on and looked really tricky, dangerous going forward every time.