Arsenal Back in Winning Form?

Arsenal on Saturday fired the full cylinder that had failed on Tuesday in the Champions League tie with Bayern Munich, to visit much anger on hapless Lincoln City who were beaten 5-0 in The FA Cup quarter finals on Saturday at the Emirates Stadium.

Had Arsenal secured such a 5-0 win in the UEFA Champions League, the fans would have been singing a new song now. But despite the heavy defeat suffered, Lincoln City manager, Danny Cowley was left with abundance of pride at his side’s display despite their FA Cup campaign coming to an end against Premier League giants Arsenal in the quarter-finals.

   According to The FA official website, the lowly classed Lincoln City held on valiantly into first-half stoppage time, but Theo Walcott ensured the Gunners would lead by the break.

Olivier Giroud added a second just after half-time, while an unfortunate own goal from centre-back Luke Waterfall all-but-ended the contest, still with half-an-hour to play at Emirates Stadium.

Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey added gloss to the scoreline with two more late efforts, a margin far from befitting the excellent fight from the National League side, the first team outside the Football League to reach the quarter-finals in 114 years.

“We found it tough in the second half, we were playing against world-class players but when they scored on the edge of half-time it was always going to be difficult, they got a lot of confidence,” said Cowley.

“But we’re the first non-league team to get to the quarter-finals in more than 100 years, and at some stage we need to be really proud of what we’ve done.

“We were disappointed to concede that first goal, we got a little bit passive and we needed to be a bit more aggressive, but this is not the time for criticism. This is a time for us to reflect on what we’ve done in the Emirates FA Cup.

“The key for us is to learn from this. We’ve played against some world-class players so we must come away from this as better players and better people.”

It seemed as though Lincoln would hold on until the break, only for Walcott’s fifth FA Cup goal of the campaign putting the Gunners ahead, spinning and firing home a low shot.

That breathed second-half life into Arsene Wenger’s side, with Giroud steering in first-time after some delicious build-up play befitting the divisional difference between the two sides.