On paper, the timing could hardly be better. This week-end, Arsenal filled up with confidence by hugging Brighton (0-3) to take the lead in the Premier League. Obviously, over there, across the Channel, things are panicking. Can these Gunners, beaten on the line by City last year, survive the shock and offer themselves their first title since 2004?
We are obviously not there yet. Especially since before possibly popping the champagne, Arsenal has other fish to fry. In the Champions League, on the most vibrant of stages, to restore an image tarnished by recent poor performances. For the first time since… 2010, the Londoners will play a quarter-final of the Champions League. An eternity for a club, accustomed to monopolizing the last four of the competition under Arsène Wenger.
Symbolically, the Gunners inherited the Bayern Munich in the draw. On paper, this is obviously a big shock looming. But for Arsenal, it’s even more than that.
Because Bayern is the Gunners’ recent bête noire. In 2016-2017, when the Munich players were, at the time, at the top of an art that they mastered to perfection, they unceremoniously slapped a helpless Arsenal team. In the two matches, won by Bayern by the same score, there was no match. Even worse, there was humiliation: 5-1, 1-5, 10 goals scored, 2 conceded, that’s what we call a demonstration according to the rules of the art.
A year earlier, in the group stage, the match scenario had been just as cruel for the Gunners. The score ? You can imagine it now: 5-1. Over the last three confrontations against the Bavarians, Arsenal have conceded three (heavy) defeats and conceded 15 (!) goals. A true nightmare. To be deleted as quickly as possible.
