Mikel Arteta has known only frustration at Arsenal in the Champions League last 16. When he was a player, he tasted defeat at this stage of the competition for five consecutive seasons – part of a wider run of seven last‑16 exits from 2011 to 2017.
That was then. But here, after a stressful night in Porto against a team with rather more recent experience of this kind of occasion, when the margins were so excruciatingly thin, Arteta got the same sinking feeling.
