Why 2nd-Place Finish in Champions League Group Could Spell Doom for Arsenal

Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Paris Saint-Germain has seen them lose control of their Champions League destiny. If PSG can beat comparative minnows Ludogorets Razgrad in the final round of fixtures, they will top the group and the Gunners will be left at the mercy of the draw. It’s a result that could leave the north London club facing a seventh consecutive exit at the first knockout phase.

Your perception of Arsenal’s November will vary drastically depending on whether you’re a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of fan.

The optimists will point to an unbeaten run that stretches back to the opening weekend of the Premier League season, and the fact that they continue to pick up positive results in spite of mounting injuries and difficult circumstances. The cynics will say that manager Arsene Wenger’s team are scraping by on poor performances and that it’s a matter of time until they’re caught out. 

Wenger is trying to emphasise the positive elements of the team's run. He told Arsenal.com:

"

Look, I think there is a special spirit in the squad and the consistency of the results… we are unbeaten for 18 games. Sometimes you go through a spell, when you have such a long momentum, where we win a bit less. It’s down to us to continue without losing a game but as well to transform the draws now into wins. But there is no reason to panic.

"

Not yet—but that could change if Arsenal find themselves drawn against one of European football’s giants in the next round. Wenger insists that finishing second is not necessarily a cause for concern.

Per Arsenal.com, the Gunners boss said: 

"

At the moment we are second - but it’s not over. We have a 90 per cent chance to finish second but we wanted to finish first. But at the moment we have not lost a game in this group, you know. Overall, we have done the job well and will it be enough to finish first? I don’t know. Will that be bad or good for us? I think we have to wait for the draw. As you look at all the groups, you cannot really guess is it good or bad. The advantage if you finish first is that you play the second game at home, but for me, what is more disappointing is we wanted to win the game and we didn’t win it. It is disappointing.

"

There have been some who’ve suggested that a second-place finish might benefit Arsenal. After all, it would enable them to avoid Bayern Munich, who’ve proved to be the scourge of the Gunners in the past. However, there can be little doubt that topping the group would help Wenger's team. They’ve fallen at the first knockout hurdle in the last six years—in five of those, they finished second.

The list of teams a second-place finish could pit Arsenal against looks pretty intimidating. As it stands, there could be trips to Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Juventus or Borussia Dortmund in the offing. Even a supposedly kinder draw could see them come up against AS Monaco, who vanquished Spurs this season and dumped Arsenal out of the competition in 2015.

If a side has won the group, they deserve huge respect. As a runner-up, there are no easy draws at this stage.  

PSG will deserve credit if they go on to win the group. Their performance at the Emirates Stadium was masterful at times. A midfield including Marco Verratti and Thiago Motta was good enough to circumnavigate their Arsenal counterparts with intelligent passing and movement.

Ahead of them, the movement of Edinson Cavani was spectacular. If his finishing had matched the quality of his runs, the French outfit would have won comfortably.

JUSTIN TALLIS/Getty Images

Wenger may reflect on whether he got his team selection right. Aaron Ramsey was paired with Francis Coquelin in the heart of the midfield. It’s a partnership that sounds strong on paper but rarely functions well in practice.

Per Arsenal.com, Wenger explained after the game:

"

It was difficult for us to find the right positioning on the pitch from the start, because we were a bit hesitant to play high up or to block them deep. So we were a bit in between the two and that is never good.

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Essentially, the Gunners were tactically outmanoeuvred by PSG’s European specialist Unai Emery. Quite why Wenger is resistant to the idea of starting £35 million-man Granit Xhaka in midfield is a mystery. The Swiss has done little wrong in an Arsenal shirt and appears to be the obvious replacement for Santi Cazorla, yet he can’t seem to win a place.

The chemistry of his front three was also wrong. Olivier Giroud was handed a start after his goalscoring cameo at Old Trafford, with Alexis Sanchez deployed on the right and Alex Iwobi on the left. They did not click as a trio, with the Nigeria international looking particularly out of sorts. The youngster is enduring a difficult spell and won’t have been helped by the fact that his flicked header gifted PSG their late equaliser.

In truth, the 20-year-old had problems at both ends of the pitch—going forward, he looked hesitant and indecisive. The confidence that once flowed through him has, hopefully only temporarily, deserted him. 

Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

The same could be said for the entire Arsenal team. A few weeks ago, there was genuine belief that the Emirates Stadium was witnessing the evolution of a new team, equipped to challenge for football’s biggest prizes. Those dreams are just beginning to evaporate. The Gunners have not stumbled, but they have stuttered. 

Of course, Arsenal have faced three huge fixtures in a row. First, they hosted Tottenham Hotspur, before travelling to Manchester United and then clashing with PSG.

On each occasion, they escaped with a draw, but it would be difficult to argue that they played to anything like their potential. At this stage, it’s unclear whether Arsenal are suffering a temporary blip or just struggling to cope with a better calibre of opposition.

Wenger is quick to praise the character of his team, but he’ll be concerned about the absence of quality in those three performances. Certainly, they’ll need to fare much better if they’re to stand any chance in the Champions League’s knockout phase.

Arsenal urgently need their spark back. The fixture list becomes a little kinder now, and Wenger’s men must use the reprieve to rebuild their confidence.

When it comes to their Champions League group, they may be doomed to finish as runners-up. However, if they can recapture their dazzling form of the season’s outset, they could yet pose a major threat in the competition’s latter stages.

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and will be following the club from a London base throughout 2016/17. Follow him on Twitter here.