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Arsenal confident of restricting Bayern Munich’s lethal Robert Lewandowski

This article is more than 8 years old

Gunners face Bayern in first of two Champions League group meetings
Poland’s Lewandowski has scored 22 goals for club and country this season

Arsène Wenger was in agreeably blunt mood before Arsenal’s meeting with Bayern Munich at the Emirates on Tuesday night. Albeit, with his team pointless in the Champions League before the double-header against Pep Guardiola’s evolving Bavarian powerhouse it would probably be unwise to dwell with any real fondness on their achievements thus far in Group F.

“We have not been at the requested level,” Wenger said of the dismal opening defeats by Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos. “The focus has been much stronger in the Premier League. We know the focus needs to be the same here.” There is, Arsenal fans will be partially consoled to hear, no such danger of underestimating Bayern, a team Wenger considers the best in Europe right now. “We’ve played great Bayern teams,” Wenger pointed out. “At least as good as the one we play tomorrow, and beaten them.”

Optimism is a wonderful thing. Indeed an optimist might suggest Arsenal are at least ahead of schedule this season, already facing elimination over two games against one of Europe’s superpowers where usually they have to wait until the spring. But there will be frustration in Wenger’s readiness to admit his team lacked focus in those opening two fixtures, not least when neither result was helped by some curious selection decisions by the manager himself.

This time around Wenger will, of necessity, play his strongest team, with Gabriel Paulista available again and no new injury doubts. Not that Wenger is willing to accept he has been guilty of prioritising the Premier League, suggesting instead that the intensity of the domestic game puts English teams at a natural disadvantage in midweek. “We fight the whole season to be in the Champions League, not to go out. We want to be in every competition.”

There is a fair sense of grievance at the fact Arsenal were beaten in Zagreb by a team fielding a player who subsequently failed a doping test, although Wenger accepts there is no chance under the current rules that the result could be expunged. But the real issue remains his own team’s inconsistency, the charge of playing to win only when too many games have already been lost.

Robert Lewandowski has scored 22 goals for Bayern Munich and Poland this season. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Bongarts/Getty Images

He said: “We are always accused of something. The thing is today you are always told what you have not done. Sometimes people forget what you have done. In 2015 we are the team that has taken more points than everybody else. And we are still accused of being inconsistent. But in Europe it’s true we have been poor in our first two games. That is what we want to correct. I must say we have our backs to the wall and we play against a top, top team. So I can understand the scepticism of people. But we have to prove them wrong.”

The first part of this will involve getting to grips with a Bayern team that has been dizzyingly fluid this season. Arsenal’s best 11 is an open secret, the 4-2-3-1 formation only occasionally tinkered into a 4-1-4-1 or similar.

For Bayern the only certainty is no certainties. Guardiola sent out a team with just one full-time career defender two weeks ago. Bayern beat Borussia Dortmund 5-1, while playing long passes out from the back. The team that beat Werder Bremen to extend that run of Bundesliga wins to a record-breaking nine at the weekend contained four players who have, at some stage, been classified solely as full-backs.

More simply Arsenal will need to stop Robert Lewandowski, scorer so far this season of 22 goals for club and country. “The best way to combat him is for us to have the ball,” Wenger said. “After that you have to be shrewd with him because inside the box he is outstanding – his technique, his finishing and movement. That’s where we will need the experience of Mertesacker and Koscielny.”

Bayern carry a threat in every area. This is a team that has further evolved in Guardiola’s third season with added gristle and grace in midfield to go with the wide thrust of Douglas Costa, who despite not training is hopeful of recovering in time to start.

Guardiola will be judged ultimately – and perhaps unfairly – on whether Bayern are crowned champions of Europe for what would be just the third time in the last 40 seasons. It is a trophy Arsenal have also obsessed over, if not quite always in the same way. As Wenger said: “The obsession at the moment is to stay in it, not to win it.”

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