Arsenal flying Premier League flag in Europe despite scrutiny as Chelsea and Man City crash out

Despite all the criticism Arsenal have faced, they're flying the Premier League flag in Europe as Chelsea and Manchester City crash out

While Arsenal’s critics have spent much of the season scrutinising the club’s style of play and whether the Gunners are a bad thing for the English game, the other Premier League sides are dropping like flies from the Champions League.

Some will say that Chelsea and Manchester City were handed tougher draws than the Gunners, and they would be right. But Arsenal’s eight wins from eight, including wins over Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan, earned them the more favourable last-16 battle.

But make no mistake, this was a Bayer Leverkusen side who came with plenty of confidence after their performance in Germany last week, followed up with another eyebrow-raising result against Bayern Munich at the weekend. Yet if there was a word to describe how the Gunners performed, it would be: professionally.

It was a masterclass across two legs, despite the display in the BayArena not being ideal. They went to a very difficult place to go, grabbed a good result and then turned it on at the Emirates.

Yet, now their reward is another opponent in the quarterfinal who they will again be overwhelming favourites for, Sporting CP. The Portuguese champions managed to overcome a three-goal deficit from their first leg clash with Bodo/Glimt, scoring five in Lisbon.

Circling back, when you look at some of the results which Man City and Chelsea dropped points in, you can see why they were then handed such tricky ties. Pep Guardiola saw Leverkusen come to the Etihad and score twice, they failed to win in Monaco and the aforementioned Bodo/Glimt beat them in Norway, putting three past them.

While the Blues were beaten by Atalanta, held by Qarabag and lost to Bayern Munich. Despite both still finishing in the top eight, they were matched up against some of the tougher play-off opponents.

PSG and Real Madrid ended up comfortably knocking out the Premier League pretenders, while Arsenal sauntered through to the last-eight. Mikel Arteta’s team scored two of the goals of the competition and should have won by more were it not for an inspired Janis Blaswich.

Yet this week we’ve seen yet more jabs and pokes aimed in the Gunners’ direction for their supposed reductive style of play and a set-piece reliance, which is what ended up being the source of Leverkusen's only goal across the two legs. Even after Max Dowman brought such joy and surprise on the weekend, still the conversation across the board again circled around what this Arsenal winning something supposedly means…

Do you know what it will mean on Sunday if Arsenal do it? It will mean they are worthy winners of a competition which has eluded them since 1993.

Taking on the closest side to them this season, in Manchester City, with the hope of landing not just the blow of a defeat in the final, but potentially a real dagger in the bigger picture of the title race. I remember sitting in Leverkusen watching Real Madrid take Guardiola’s team apart, and the Arsenal press pack discussing whether this was good or bad in the context of the title race.

Now they’re confirmed to be out and will not have to play a very scary-looking Bayern Munich side in the week before Arsenal come to the Etihad, it might be easy to say, well, of course it would have been better for them to stay in. However, the blow of losing in Madrid preceded the draw at West Ham.

The potential outcome of being knocked out of two competitions in just six days is something Arsenal can inflict on City. Mikel Arteta’s record at Wembley is good; his record recently against Guardiola is also solid.

And now his team have the benefit of form on their side, whereas Man City have one just one of their last five games. Marc Guehi is also cup-tied and missing for the final too.

Now it is about getting the job done, ending this long trophy drought early and then getting back to the job of ticking off further competitions on the list. Arsenal fans have reasons to be excited, so while the negative nellies continue to create this noise, the team needs to just continue to do their thing, because it has worked out pretty well for them so far.