Group Stage Reflections: Looking Back on Our Return to Europe’s Footballing Top Table

In the midst of a pretty uninspiring, unadventurous dead-rubber tie against PSV, it’s pretty easy for the mind to wander.

As I sat watching a heavily-rotated Arsenal side limp to a luke-warm one-all draw against the Eredivisie league leaders on Tuesday evening, I couldn’t help but ponder over our journey to this point. In the dreamy, rose-tinted highlight reel of our table-topping group stage performance, I feel that there are several major take-aways, both romantic and pragmatic alike.

Nuestra Casa

A premier factor leaping out at me is that the Emirates has undeniably, irrefutably been a fortress in the competition thus far. Three games. Three wins. Twelve goals scored. Zero goals conceded.

So much has been said and toiled over regarding the atmosphere at the Emirates thus far this season, and whether it is struggling to keep pace with that of the dizzy heights of last year’s tumultuous, emotional rollercoaster of a campaign. But that spectacular transition from ‘The Angel (North London Forever)’ into the goosebump-inducing Champions League Anthem has to have put even the most stubborn sceptic at ease. I, personally, could tangibly feel six years of painful absence wash over me, and breathed a collective sigh of relief with the rest of the Clock End as we bellowed out ‘The Championsssss’.

But the joy and nostalgia of the pre-match rituals have been towered over by the class, ease, discipline and flow of our performances under the lights in North London. We’ve taken each of our three opponents to the sword, scored some beautifully-crafted individual and team goals respectively, and sent the barmy, flare-bearing, beanie-wearing away fans back to their flights and their ferries with their tails firmly between their legs.

I think the Emirates has the potential to be a huge weapon for us as we progress to the knockouts. You can debate, in the current format of the Champions League, how much the home/away swing counts in the desperate fight to progress.

Any team in Europe must be reticent and fearful of visiting the Emirates right now. And we should also feel that we can get a result against anyone on our patch. Which can surely only be a good thing.

Said, ‘Now’s Your Time To Shine’

Again, I worry that perhaps not all Arsenal fans are singing from the same hymn sheet on this one. But the evidence presented to me, which I have witnessed with my own eyes, really does suggest that we possess a fistful of big-game players in this current crop.

And these players have spent the group stage exhibiting just how much they love to play in big, consequential European fixtures. We’ve seen how much Saliba and Gabriel have relished sliding in for seamless, poetic, last-ditch recovery tackles against Sevilla (H) and PSV (A) alike.

We’ve witnessed how, if you fail to double-up on Saka and Martinelli, then they’ll gleefully take a mile and whip in a handful of worldies. And we’ve watched on as several of our goals in this season’s competition have seen us return to our fluid, eervescent best; my thoughts sit particularly with Odegaard’s sumptuous volley against Lens (H), and Trossard’s glorious daisy-cutter in our opening fixture against PSV.

A special mention has to go to Gabriel Jesus. With four goals in five appearances, these European nights seem to have brought Gabi to his imperious best; his hold-up play has been flawless, it’s been a delight to watch him experiment on the ball, and it’s been especially pleasing to see him contradict his own self-deprecating (and slightly taken out-of-context) reviews of his goalscoring capabilities.

Unlike a myriad of Arsenal squads in years gone by, I trust these players whole-heartedly. Again, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, or induce a jinx. And, of course, our minds turn to performances in the back-end of last season, when we perhaps failed to show up when it really counted.

But I really do believe that this squad, strengthened even further by the impossible, inevitable Declan Rice and a Champions League Final winner in Kai Havertz, can take on Europe’s big hitters. And dare I say it, even enjoy doing so.

On The Way

Now, say this one quietly. But perhaps my most burning, most prominent take-away from the group stage is what I see when I look left and right at the other teams progressing to the knock-out stages. And we know how good City are.

We know that we stand firmly on Real Madrid’s turf now. We’ve witnessed Bayern gleefully turn their group over with ease (and God bless them, break United hearts in the process). But, hand on heart, how many teams can we honestly say are ‘better’ than us right now? Who do we really need to fear? Who are we praying that we don’t butt up against as we dream of going as far as merit can take us in this year’s competition?

These are questions that I probably shouldn’t be asking, and definitely shouldn’t be answering. Because maybe they’re overly-confident or deluded or naive or unhelpful or distracting... but the road to Wembley looks pretty exciting, however far along this exceptional group of players can drive us from here.