Arsene Wenger Must Bury Past and Present Issues to End Champions League Hoodoo

As the Premier League begins its run-in toward the end of another campaign, European action once more rears its head, as the ultimate prize in club football, the UEFA Champions League, demands the attention and focus, the dreams and the hopes, of the continent's elite.

Arsenal face Monaco in the last 16 hoping for further improvement in a season that, on the face of it, looks exciting—third in the league, still in Europe, last eight of the FA Cup—but in which they have again, at times, flattered to deceive.

With Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho recently claiming on Sky Sports that Wenger should be winning more with Arsenal and has a "dream job," per ESPN FC, it's time for the French boss to show he still has the capacity to lead his team to success—not simply a long-standing relative mediocrity among the top sides fighting for silverware.

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In today’s entry of 'Jose Mourinho Takes a Shot at Arsene Wenger,’ edition No. 592: http://t.co/HVQwF1gzhv pic.twitter.com/EjiXGpSwII

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) February 22, 2015"

Guaranteed Acceptance of Failure?

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I do not understand why they are not where we are with Man City. He has a dream job. I think every manager in the world would like to have the stability he has. Year after year after year, he has the chance to buy, to sell, to rebuild, to wait for success and wait and wait. 

What he did with the club in a certain period gave him that credibility—that he deserves because he is a fantastic manager, but he also had a fantastic situation to be successful. When I look at the players and I look at the squad, I really think they have to win.

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So said Mourinho, citing Wenger's great success with the Gunners in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the reason for his continued presence at the club. "Wait and wait" is certainly something the fans have had to put up with of late, as last year's FA Cup victory was the first silverware Wenger had managed to produce for nine years.

Clive Mason/Getty Images

Both inside the stadium and on social media, there are more and more examples of Arsenal fans being unhappy at the stagnation and lack of apparent progress while the club continue to support Wenger's team building without tangible rewards.

Mourinho, of course, referred to Wenger as a "specialist in failure" in February 2014, per ESPN FC, and his most recent swipe is another indication of Arsenal's comparative lack of ability to challenge for top honours.

Arsenal might only be two places behind Chelsea in the league table, but there is a 12-point gulf between them with just 12 games of the season remaining. Once again, Wenger has not managed to put up a title fight despite huge-money signings, such as Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, being added to the team over the past two summers.

Round of 16

In the Champions League, it's a similar story.

Year after year, Arsenal qualify for Europe's top competition, ease their way through the group stage and bow out pointlessly at the first sight of a team with an ounce of genuine quality.

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Arsene Wenger says our @ChampionsLeague tie is "a 50:50 game". What do you reckon, @AS_Monaco? http://t.co/KzPCsaDKee pic.twitter.com/WzQgn2x1Ji

— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) February 23, 2015"

Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Bayern Munich. The past four seasons have seen Arsenal exit the Champions League at the round-of-16 stage, ousted by impressive names while the Gunners merely show themselves as capable of being also-rans.

Again this year, nobody expects them to be in the conversation when the final two or four have been whittled down—which is a damning indication of the lowered standards, considering they reached the final in 2006 and at least the last eight in three out of the following four years.

Wenger has altered tactics and personnel to better effect this season than last. He has had to overcome injuries in his squad, bed in a few new signings and has seen his team inch their way toward potentially retaining the FA Cup.

Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

The biggest measure on their improvement, or lack thereof, for this season will be whether they can progress to the last eight in the Champions League.

Monaco, Where it All Began

Standing in the way is one AS Monaco, French Ligue 1 runners-up last season, who have since changed manager, stopped spending and overcome a dreadful start to the campaign to push themselves back into the top four this past weekend—not a Champions League spot in France, of course, where there are only three places reserved for Europe's elite club competition.

They are also Arsene Wenger's old team. Monaco is where it really all began for the boss, who won his first major title there, the French championship in 1988, a decade before he won his first Premier League title with Arsenal.

The present iteration of Monaco bears no resemblance to that he took charge of, of course, but it will nonetheless present a tough challenge for Wenger to overcome, tactically and technically, against a side on the up and with nothing to lose.

Arsenal's lack of ability to challenge in Europe over the past few seasons has, in the wider context of the game, seen them summarily dismissed as making up the numbers. Progress at this stage, and impressive progress at that, is the only way for the club, and Wenger himself, to reestablish credentials as a force to be reckoned with.

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