When Arsène Wenger finally does write that book there will surely be a chapter about his near misses in the transfer market. It is likely to be substantial. The Arsenal manager rolled out a little more content here, when he mentioned how Pep Guardiola once eluded him.
The Catalan had called time on his playing career at Barcelona in 2001 and he would head for Brescia in Serie A. But not before Wenger held talks with him.
“He wanted to play with me as a coach,” Wenger said before the meeting with Guardiola and Bayern on Wednesday night, in what will be a seismic Champions League occasion. “I met him at home when he was 30, 31. He wanted to play for Arsenal. I can’t remember why it didn’t happen.
“I had players like [Patrick] Vieira and [Emmanuel] Petit, who were still young then. He showed great personality when we talked. What I admire about him is that his team play very positively.”
There is mutual respect between the managers and there are similarities to their approaches, but there were a couple of moments when Guardiola looked back on the meeting between the teams at the Emirates Stadium two weeks ago. He speculated on what he might expect in the return and highlighted how Wenger had relied on the long ball, which is not the sort of thing that might sit too easily with the Frenchman.
“Arsenal want to attack and build up but when you press Mertesacker and Koscielny, they don’t want to play,” Guardiola said. “They play long balls to Giroud. Also, if they lose the ball and we make two or three passes, Mertesacker doesn’t want to stay high up, so they go back in their box and defend there.
“Arsenal will try long balls to Giroud. Cech will not play the ball to defenders, he will try long balls to Giroud. We have to defend well and be ready for that.”
The statistics showed that in their earlier Group F ties, Arsenal’s proportion of long passes (of 35 yards or more) was 8.6% against Dinamo Zagreb and 5.7% against Olympiakos. Against Bayern it was 19.8%.
The approach was born of necessity. Bayern hogged the possession at the Emirates and all Arsenal could do was defend with their lives.
When they did come out in an attacking sense, Wenger said they relied on “two weapons”. First, the pace of Theo Walcott on the counterattack and then “a bit more direct with Giroud”. Walcott is one of nine injury absentees for Arsenal at present and so it is likely that even greater onus will fall on Giroud.
Wenger’s tactics got the job done in the first game, Arsenal’s 2-0 win – after the defeats against Zagreb and Olympiakos – serving to keep their campaign alive. And it will be fascinating to see if he can outmanoeuvre Guardiola again at a stadium where Arsenal won in 2013 and drew in 2014.
Wenger predicted Arsenal would endure “uncomfortable moments” during the game against a team who “will put us under pressure and play attacking football”. He name-checked the danger posed by Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Müller and Arjen Robben but he might have mentioned others – Douglas Costa, for example, is in outstanding form.
Wenger suggested that “maybe the best way for us is also to attack”, but it is difficult to see a different pattern to that from the Emirates. It promises to be another test of Arsenal’s balance, nerve and defensive discipline.
“When we have to defend, we must do it well and get through these moments,” Wenger said. “And in our good periods, we want to attack. We didn’t only want to defend at the Emirates but we organised ourselves to defend well in certain situations.
“We changed and played on the counter. It’s difficult to know who will dominate but it will probably be Bayern.”
Arsenal have generated conviction over recent weeks and something of a feel-good factor. In London, the fires are raging at Chelsea and Wenger’s team have come to consider themselves as very serious Premier League title contenders.
And yet their European hopes are on the edge, despite the tonic that was the home win over Bayern. If they fail in Munich and Olympiakos were to beat Zagreb at home, Arsenal would be threatened with a drop into the Europa League. “Defeat would put us in a very bad position and that’s why we don’t want to lose,” Wenger said.
“We would still have a chance but it would diminish our chances to qualify. The best way is not to get into that position. We want to give everything to win. We are not thinking about how we will deal with the Europa League.”
Wenger has lost Héctor Bellerín to a groin injury, which he said was only minor and so Mathieu Debuchy will come in at right-back for only his fourth appearance of the season. Debuchy has struggled, understandably, for rhythm. On one of the biggest nights of their season, he and Arsenal must find it.