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Charlie Nicholas says Arsenal are broken following their 5-1 defeat to Bayern Munich

Alexis Sanchez appears dejected during the Champions League Round-of-16 match against Bayern Munich
Image: Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions League after a 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich

Charlie Nicholas thinks Arsenal are a broken team following another 5-1 defeat to Bayern Munich.

The Gunners crashed out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage for a seventh consecutive season after a 10-2 aggregate defeat to the Bundesliga leaders.

The 5-1 defeat at the Emirates was their biggest defeat at the stadium and Arsenal's biggest home loss since November 1998.

And former Arsenal striker Nicholas thinks the players are not playing for Wenger anymore.

"I hate to say it, but you can tell the team is broken," he told Soccer Special.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looks dejected after another Champions League humiliation for Arsenal
Image: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looks dejected after another Champions League humiliation for Arsenal

When asked if he thinks the Arsenal players are playing for the manager, he said: "It feels as if they are not and that tells a story. But then again I'm not letting the players off the hook as easy as that.

"If that's the case they are not even playing for themselves which is a bigger crime than anything because these are the same guys, who a couple of months ago were telling us they were a good bunch, spirited and got on well.

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"In December they had a hardship, had a meeting and sorted it all out. They didn't even invite the manager, he didn't know because they sorted it. Who is sorting this now then?"

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Arsenal supporters made their feelings clear against Arsene Wenger before they were thrashed by Bayern Munich in the Champions League

Arsenal had their backs to the wall after a 5-1 defeat in the Allianz Arena three weeks ago but they started well as they looked to go about overturning the deficit.

And they took a deserved lead through Theo Walcott in the 20th minute before Bayern reacted after the interval.

Laurent Koscielny was sent off for bringing down Robert Lewandowski, who scored the resulting penalty before Arjen Robben struck and then Douglas Costa and an Arturo Vidal double inside seven minutes added insult to injury on another tough night for Wenger.

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Wenger was left unimpressed by the referee's performance as his side were thrashed 5-1 by Bayern Munich

And Nicholas thinks Wenger, who he called tactially naive, looks like a man who is running out of ideas as he looks to avert his side's recent slump.

"He's always tactically naive," Nicholas said. "He doesn't work enough on the other side of the game. And the game has passed him by because the genius he brought to this country has been caught up.

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 07:  Laurent Koscielny of Arsenal looks dejected as he is sent off during the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 second leg match be
Image: Laurent Koscielny was sent off in the second half

"Other people have identified different systems and they go for it with different principles. When it works it's fabulous but it stopped working a long time ago.

"It's easy to identify things to break it and now it's broken, there are no players in there that can fix it.

"The manager is now looking like he hasn't got the ammunition to fix it."

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