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European performance is one of the few question marks still hanging over Arteta’s head, and there’s no better time than Tuesday’s game against Porto to answer it definitively. Arsenal have not reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League since 2010 and supporters will be hoping for a win this week.
Arteta became sour when asked about the team’s difficulties in Europe since taking over. “If you look at the statistics, that’s the reality, right? Let’s change that,” he said. “The samples are a bit small. Let’s change that.”
To be fair to Arteta, Arsenal’s European performance predates Arteta’s appointment as manager. They go into Tuesday night having lost five consecutive Champions League finals at home, the most recent of which was a 5-1 thrashing at Bayern Munich in 2017.
Over the past decade or so, Arsenal’s most memorable European tours have been under Unai Emery. He led the club to the 2019 Europa League final, beating Rennes, Napoli and Valencia, but lost to Chelsea. Wenger stumbled in the semi-finals of the competition in 2018, and so did Arteta in 2021.
There is no doubt that Arsenal are underperforming in European competitions. This is because the pace of the match is different and the opponent presents a more unfamiliar challenge. Judgments are also often stricter. This was certainly a source of frustration for Arsenal in the first leg in Porto, with the whistle blowing every 30 seconds.
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