The least said about Arsenal’s last Champions League knockout tie the better. Actually, their last two.
Try as they may to eradicate that harrowing 10-2 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich in 2017 from their psyche, the embarrassing remnants of those two punishing 5-1 defeats linger.
In fact, the Gunners haven’t played in a Champions League quarter final since 2010, a stat Mikel Arteta would much rather forget given he played for the club for five years from 2011.
‘Someone called Messi was an obstacle as well and Bayern Munich that we faced twice,’ Arteta quickly pointed out as mitigation for those failures.