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Reality cheque Arsenal's reunion with Bayern offers reminder of game's changing landscape

The Guardian

November 25, 2025

November 2015. The Allianz Arena, Munich. A decade ago, yet a lifetime away for Arsenal in the Champions League.

- Sean Ingle

Reality cheque Arsenal's reunion with Bayern offers reminder of game's changing landscape

That night Arsène Wenger's team were so shredded in a 5-1 defeat by Bayern Munich that my Guardian colleague David Hytner likened them to "the chicken feed from the lower reaches of the Bundesliga that Bayern routinely gobble up". It was Arsenal's joint-worst result in Europe. Bayern repeated the trick the following season. Twice: 5-1 at home, then 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium.

Back then English football wasn't just off the pace in the Champions League but in danger of being lapped.

Across the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, only two Premier League teams - Manchester City and Leicester - made it past the last 16. Remember the postmortems? The grasping for reasons why, for all their riches, English teams were struggling in Europe? Now look. Arsenal are now the best team in Europe, at least according to Club Elo ratings, based on every team's results and the strength of their opponents.

Bayern, who travel to the Emirates Stadium tomorrow, are third. And 12 Premier League sides are in the top 20.

But watching Arsenal's dismissive victory in the north London derby, during a weekend when Bayern smashed Freiburg 6-2 and Paris Saint-Germain defeated Le Havre 3-0, a couple of questions bubbled to the surface.

This story is from the November 25, 2025 edition of The Guardian.

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