Arsenal have more than recent history to rewrite in Champions League

It’s seven years since the Gunners got past the group stage – but they’re still yet to win Europe’s top competition

Over the past few days, some of the Arsenal squad have been playing the Champions League theme to each other. There’s a giddiness around the travelling group, that has been amplified by the team’s raucous recent form. It is a welcome reminder of how the gravitas of the competition can still bring a simple thrill, even as it faces bigger questions.

The Arsenal players feel this is where they should be every season. Instead, Mikel Arteta has actually been preparing for the club’s first Champions League knockout tie in seven years. There is more to rectify than that underwhelming stat, though.

For all that Arsenal became a fixture in the competition under Arsene Wenger, famously reaching the last 16 for 16 consecutive seasons, their name has remained missing from the only place that matters most. That is the pantheon of champions.

There’s a fair argument that Arsenal are the biggest club to never win the competition, and maybe the most underperforming. That is about more than just a huge global profile, which has seen them dwarf two-time European champions in FC Porto. Arsenal have won 13 domestic titles, which is more than any other club from the five major leagues to never win the Champions League. The next closest are Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico Madrid, both on 11. Those two have also been in many more semi-finals and finals more recently, against Arsenal’s two appearances in the last four in history. A great club should have a far better European heritage.

And yet there may now be a twist to that.