How their Bayern demolition proves Arsenal are the best side in Europe | OneFootball

Another victory of outstanding quality, that may yet set up more to come. And maybe a new Champions League winner.

If a theme of this second campaign of an expanded Champions League has been the sense of lower stakes, this 3-1 Arsenal win over the next best side in Europe may yet be a sign of how this season is actually decided. That isn’t just for the fact that Mikel Arteta’s supremely complete side comprehensively won a tactically-rich contest between fine sides, or even that 17-year-old Bayern Munich revelation Lennart Karl looked so promising.

There was also the nature of the tactical contest, which has started to form another theme of this season.

While Arsenal are notionally the best examples of a newly technocratic Premier League, where set-pieces have become the most prominent example of this attempt to use its ample wealth to really maximise every single margin, Bayern are another continental side who continue to almost exclusively insist on a more open positional game.

That could initially be seen in the first-half goals. First, Arsenal showed off their speciality with Jurrien Timber scoring an almost indefensible corner to go ahead, and ensure that the last five goals Bayern have conceded have been from set-pieces.

It was inevitable, as sure an eventuality as you could have – Bayern then followed by doing what so few now do to this Arsenal defence, and properly opened them up. Joshua Kimmich played a near-perfect cross-field ball, that found Michael Olise just inside. He immediately supplied his own fine delivery for Karl to finish.

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Jurrien Timber scored from yet another Arsenal set-piece (Getty Images)

If we’re talking about fine margins, Bayern showed the difference of millimetres and milliseconds at this level. Even a defence as good as Arsenal’s can’t keep out such a side indefinitely.

These are the standards. The issue for the rest of Europe, however, is that Arsenal might have risen to them – or even past them?

Their quality from set-pieces shouldn’t obscure the fact that Arteta’s team could do almost anything Bayern could in open play, and more. The two clinching goals came from there, with the contrasts between the sides compounded by how Vincent Kompany’s team coughed up so many errors.

Noni Madueke’s goal came from a sloppy Dayot Upamecano pass out from the back straight to Declan Rice, and Gabriel Martinelli’s from another loss as Manuel Neuer did his wandering act.

By then, however, Arsenal were completely dominant. As with the north London derby victory over a chastened Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League leaders could genuinely have hit five or six here – especially in the second half.

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Arsenal were immense in destroying Bayern Munich (Getty Images)

Maybe Spurs weren’t actually that bad. Maybe Arsenal are actually this good. They just have more, even than a fancied side like Bayern – at least for now.

It is ominous for Chelsea at the weekend, as Arsenal now threaten to turn a very challenging week into the best you could possibly have.

They are flying, able to come up at you from all angles – which is where the contrast is all the more relevant. It is not that the English sides have set-pieces and the best continental sides persist in a more purist approach. It is that the English sides have that and more.

There might always be that extra advantage in games like this.

Arsenal know better than any recent side how you can’t read too much into one half of the season. A lot can change. It was around this time last year that they comprehensively beat Paris Saint-Germain at home in the group stage.

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Declan Rice impressed again for the Gunners (Action Images via Reuters)

The nature of that victory, as well as the football, might lend to a feeling that – in classic European style – an emphasis on open play will eventually out; that, like PSG, a side such as Bayern will eventually find that extra rhythm when it really matters.

It just feels risky to presume that right now, when Arsenal were that good. They battered Bayern into submission on set-plays, but then overwhelmed them in play, too. Right now, they have everything.

There was even the happiness of Martin Odegaard coming back, as the fans got to gleefully sing at Harry Kane about the score.

Arsenal are the only side left with a 100 per cent Champions League record, to go with their domestic form, as confidence only grows. Barely anyone can touch them right now, unless you’re a player of Karl’s potential.

Arteta is keen to ensure that the team retains this ultra-focus above all else. Right now, though, they just look above everyone else – no matter how you try and play them.

They’ve already set themselves up for so much. They know they just have to make it really matter.