”If Ozil Controls The Game, We Are In Trouble” Guardiola

Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiolahas warned his team not to be complacent when they meet Arsenal in Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg in Germany.

The Germans will defend a 2-0 lead at the Allianz Arena gained from their trip to London last month.

Arsenal faced a similar situation in last season’s competition. Then, they trailed 3-1 from the home leg but managed to win 2-0 in Germany to bow out on away goals.

Based on that, Guardiola said Bayern must not take anything for granted.

“Winning 2-0 in London was a very good result for us, but it is also dangerous,” said Guardiola.

“The Champions League is a huge game for us, it is not like a day-to-day game in the Bundesliga.

Guardiola also emphasized on the need for the champions to subdue the Gunners’ forward supply line.

“They have a lot of quality, so we have to make sure we have a lot of possession.”

“We have to make sure they do not score a goal.

“We have to have that offensive idea and to play with the type of mentality that we win, otherwise we will have a problem.

“When I analyse Arsenal and the first game (last month), we saw the quality of (Santi) Cazorla, we saw what happened until the (early) penalty (Mesut) Ozil missed, what happened in the first nine minutes they were the nine minutes in this season when the opponent was better against us. They remain a good club, a good team.”

“They can create two or three really great chances in two or three minutes. If you play in a really good team like Arsenal and are 2-0 down, anything is possible.

“People think ‘2-0 you don’t have a chance in Munich’, but that’s the main problem for us.

“They have (Per) Mertesacker, (Tomas) Rosicky, (Kieran) Gibbs, (Mikel) Arteta a lot of very good players.

“I do not want to see Ozil control the game. That will be a big problem for us.

“This is not an easy game. We have to attack, give our best, be aggressive without the ball.”

The match at Emirates Stadium could have been so different but for an early penalty miss by Arsenal’s club-record signing Mesut Ozil.

The Gunners then had goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny sent off before second-half goals from Toni Kroos and Thomas Muller put the reigning European champions in control of the tie.