There was barely a flicker of expectation among Arsenal fans before Bayern Munich’s most recent visit, in March 2017. Among a few hundred, there was active disdain: a march to the Emirates from Avenell Road, where the facade of Highbury’s art deco-fronted east stand remains, that featured banners calling for Arsène Wenger to terminate a long but fading tenure. Within three hours those placards were being brandished inside the ground by the masochistic souls who had stayed to the end of another 5-1 defeat, a third successive shaming by that scoreline against the serial Bundesliga champions. This should have been a meeting of continental powers; instead it was another sheer embarrassment.
On Tuesday the same supporters will bounce into the stands. It is much too soon to state the tables have turned entirely but, for the moment, Arsenal and Bayern have seen their situations flip around. A slick, clinical, tightly drilled machine will face an erratic, porous side filled with gifted but mercurial individuals and helmed by a manager whose time is almost up. The fact Mikel Arteta’s team can claim to be the first of those, and will enter this quarter-final tie as slight favourites, would have appeared unthinkable when Arturo Vidal completed the rout to boos and an emptying of the stadium seven years ago.
