The Gunners struggled to unpick a stubborn Cologne defence due to fielding a line-up bereft of creativity
Arsenal may have finished top of their Europa League group but the performance against Cologne showed that Arsene Wenger’s second string won’t be good enough to reach the latter stages of the Europa League. The stalemate between BATE Borisov and Red Star Belgrade means that the Gunners finish top of Group H despite a draw and defeat in their last two tournament games.
Wenger didn’t need to field a full strength line-up for Arsenal’s away match in Cologne and past results would suggest the team he fielded on paper are more than good enough to beat the side currently bottom of the Bundesliga.