We got to the champions league final as well...It could be 10 years before Dortmund or Athletico get to the final again. I don't really understand that argument. We've been unfortunate to meet in the last 16 basically the eventual winners or runners up the last 4 years or something..had we not we could have been in a final recently as well.
14/15 CL. Arsenal went out to Monaco 3-3 on agg, Monaco then got beaten by Juve 1-0 on agg who went onto the final.
12/13 CL. Arsenal went out to Bayern 3-3 on agg. Bayern went on to win it that season.
It's not like we're utter tripe is it.
If Wenger were to leave at the end of the season, who would like to see replace him?
We've met the winners or runners up thus losing to Monaco wasn't bad? Is that really what you want to say. Monaco went out in the quarter finals, not the semi finals and they certainly weren't the runners up, they also weren't very good.
Arsenal got tonked 3-1 then won the second leg 2-0. Monaco aren't a great team, we were awful in the first leg... as usual and in the second leg they played to not lose by too much, we were bad, they were awful, they scraped through.
Bayern utterly outplayed us, we lost 3-1 on aggregate. So we drew against a rubbish team and got spanked by Bayern. They beat us 2-0, they had 27 shots, we were abysmal, we got a red card, we got away with loads and it was pure luck we didn't lose 5-0. The second leg Bayern played as if they were already through, it ended up 1-1. In that second leg Bayern had 67% possession, 14 shots to out 7, 6 on target to our 3... they were barely trying and still outplayed us. That game was closer to finishing 5-1 than to the 3-1 we required.
Going out to Bayern itself isn't bad, the first leg performance WAS atrocious, we bottled it as per usual. The same players let us down again as they have for years. The mentality, the tactics, the preparation was all completely wrong.
Dortmund may have lost to Bayern, but not as meekly, it wasn't a 99% certainty we'd be atrocious in one leg to the degree the tie was beyond us. For 4 years in a row we've managed to have one of our worst games of the season in one of the two legs... that we almost come back in the other leg when the other team thinks they are through and are saving themselves is meaningless.
EDIT:-, okay, I thought that was 14/15 and 13/14. The result did change, the circumstances didn't. in 12/13 they tonked us on one game, basically saved themselves in the other and they had all the better chances in the second leg while barely trying. It was closer to them thrashing us in the second leg than us actually winning.
In that game, where Bayern barely tried they had 54% possession, 21 shots to our 5, 8 on target to our 3, we committed 25 fouls to their 13, we had 6 yellow cards, they had 3 shots blocked to our 1. Barely trying they utterly dominated, had multiple guilt edged chances and somehow lost 2-0. 5-2 would have been a fair reflection of the game. We got thoroughly outplayed in both legs and our complete capitulation at home in the first leg gave the tie away.
The year before that we got utterly destroyed in the first leg against a really very weak Milan, they gave up for the second leg and it was relatively close but without trying after fluffing the first leg we still went out. Milan went out in the quarter final.
What we have is a history of weak mentality, weak players and being so absolutely awful in one leg that the other team can stroll into the next round without even trying. In 4 years we haven't managed to put together 2 half decent performances, one absolutely awful followed by one doesn't at all matter. If we only went out to the eventual winners that would be one thing, but that happened twice in the past 5 years(maybe once more this year).
Those two times we faced the eventual winners... both times we messed up in the group stage and qualified second behind the giants that are Schalke and Shaktar.
