It wouldn’t be Arsenal if it were done the easy way. Beating Hull City 3 – 2 at Wembley to win the FA Cup in 2014, they didn’t leave London and had home draws in all rounds until the semi-final. Then they crawled past Wigan on penalties, before coming back from 0 – 2 to win in extra-time.
This year’s Champions League is no different. Leading Paris St Germain 2 – 1 at the Emirates, the Gunners needed to see out the game to qualify for the Round of Sixteen as group winners. They didn’t; a late Alex Iwobi own goal turned the group on its’ head and the French club held Arsenal’s fate in their hands.
That was quickly replaced by their heads as Ludogorets gave them a bloody nose in the Parc Des Princes while Arsenal thrashed Basel in Switzerland to steal top spot. Not that winning the group did them any good. It’s hard to work out who came off worse. Arsenal drew Bayern Munich while PSG face Barcelona.
It’s the third time in three years that the Gunners have drawn the German champions in the Champions and the third time that the pair face each other in the knockout stages. Arsenal can be forgiven for viewing this with some trepidation. They won three of the ten meetings – the two clubs met in 2000/01 and 2005 as well – while drawing two, compared to Bayern’s five wins.
Indeed, if the results are put into an aggregate context, Arsenal has lost five out of five ties: 2 – 3, 2 – 3, 3 – 3 (away goals), 1 – 3 and 3 – 5. There have been some brutal defeats; harsh footballing lessons given to a club which has qualified for the Champions League every year since Wenger’s first double win in 1997/98.
Wenger is unique among football’s managers: he’s lost the finals of all three major European club competitions and never won one. Many of us believe he never will. Arsenal spurned two glorious opportunities and haven’t looked like troubling the engravers since.
He recently admitted that 2003/04 was his biggest regret in that sense. Arsenal drew 1 – 1 at Stamford Bridge in the quarter-final first leg before losing 1 – 2 to Chelsea in the second at Highbury. The last four included eventual winners Porto, as well as Deportivo La Coruna and AS Monaco, arguably the weakest quartet in the revamped tournament’s history.
The Invincibles domestically, Arsenal’s XI came no closer than their predecessors to lifting Europe’s premier prize. 2006 saw Victor Valdes make crucial saves from Thierry Henry which kept Barcelona in the final whilst three years later, Cristiano Ronaldo finished Arsenal off in the second leg of the semi-final.
Since then, and immediately before, it was a litany of knockout round exits to the great and good of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, while the distinctly average Milan and Monaco also dumped them out of the tournament in between.
UEFA included several Arsenal players in their list of ‘greats’ never to win the trophy. It’s an indictment of Wenger that with the talent at his disposal, he’s never lifted a European trophy during his reign in North London.
The closest was the Europa League in 2000, when Arsenal took some of the poorest penalties in history to lose the shootout 1 – 4 to Galatasaray. That they should have won in the preceding 120 minutes is largely forgotten, as is Wenger’s defeat as Monaco coach in the European Cup Winners Cup final. 0 – 2 to Werder Bremen, in 1992 since you asked.
While the run to Paris in 2005/06 was a masterclass in European competition football, everything since then has been abysmal. Arsenal set the record that season for most minutes without conceding a goal and were set solidly in defence, assisted by an exemplary midfield and outstanding attack.
Just as in 1993/94 when George Graham led the Gunners to Cup Winners Cup glory over Parma, Wenger knew the value of not conceding. ‘One-nil to the Arsenal’ was a familiar refrain as Real Madrid succumbed by that scoreline in the Bernabeu with Juventus and Villarreal both dumped out of the cup on aggregate. Yes, there was luck but also outstanding play from the Gunners as well.
Now, Wenger is tactically naïve. Arsenal are utterly predictable at home, passing themselves into muddles, with opponents sitting back and picking them off on the counter-attack. It’s telling Arsenal haven’t won a home knockout leg since beating Barcelona 2 – 1 in 2011. The Catalans, Bayern and Monaco have all effectively ended the ties after the first leg. Valiant away legs have come to nought and Arsenal exit.
The Gunners lack of patience and Plan B underlines a mentality which haunts the club. Conservative financially, Wenger veers from attacking bravado to an ill-conceived conservatism at home on the pitch. Arsenal don’t have a way of breaking down massed ranks when they are placed in front of them nor do they have the defensive discipline to accept that a home draw can be enough to build the platform for a victory away from home.
That rests entirely with the manager. He dictates the playing philosophy and is often baffled by the more tactically astute opponent. Wenger is to be admired for his adherence to the belief in winning by playing football the ‘right way’ but it is also the barrier to success.
Sadly, unless he has a radical epiphany, success is always going to be in Arsene Wenger’s rear view mirror.
