Arsenal's return to the Champions League after a six-year absence was met with immense excitement. The Gunners were determined to make the most of their comeback and did so impressively, securing a commanding 4-0 victory over PSV Eindhoven. They displayed the kind of authority typically seen in experienced Champions League teams. Interestingly, none of the players who started their previous match, a 5-1 loss to Bayern Munich in March 2017, are currently with the club.
Players Turnover Since the Bayern Munich Loss
Arsenal began their UEFA Europa League campaign with a 2-1 victory over FC Zurich last week as their impressive start to the season continued, although their hiatus from the Champions League for another season continued to cause concern.
Mikel Arteta was building something exciting at the Emirates Stadium, with the Gunners currently sitting top of the Premier League after six games, but the Spaniard had failed to return the Gunners to football’s most prestigious club competition during his three-year reign.
The Last Champions League Appearance: 2016/17 Season
Arsenal’s last appearance in the Champions League was during the 2016/17 season, in what had been their 17th consecutive campaign in the tournament and seventh in a row that they had exited at the round of 16 stage.
The Gunners had qualified after finishing as runners-up in the Premier League the previous season and had topped their group ahead of Paris Saint-Germain, Ludogorets Razgrad, and Basel, winning four and drawing two of their six fixtures to advance to the knockout stage.
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However, what came next had been one of the worst embarrassments in the club's history, as they were thrashed 5-1, home and away, by Bayern Munich, exiting the competition on the back of a 10-2 aggregate defeat to the German champions.
During that same season, Wenger had been unable to achieve a top-four finish as his Arsenal days had begun to number, and it had subsequently ended a run of 17 consecutive years that he had qualified the north London outfit for the Champions League, which had begun in the 2000/01 campaign.
Throughout that nearly two-decade run, Wenger had reached the final with Arsenal on just one occasion. In the 2005/06 campaign, the Gunners had made it all the way to the last game of the competition, only to lose 2-1 to Barcelona at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Paris.
Eight of the next 11 years had seen the Gunners knocked out in the round of 16 stages, in what had become a predictable end to their Champions League campaigns, with a semi-final appearance in the 2008/09 season being as good as it had gotten during that time.
There had never been any doubt in Arsenal qualifying for the Champions League, with Wenger consistently achieving a top-four finish in the Premier League and boasting a number of top-quality players, yet it had never seemed to work out at the highest level in Europe.
