By Now you all know Arsenal will battle with Bayern Munich in the next round of Champions League.
This will be the fourth year out of five that Arsene Wenger’s side will have played Bayern in the competition – and despite winning several matches in isolation, Bayern have always triumphed over a two-legged tie.
However, it is not just the Bundesliga side that Arsenal seem to have a knack of coming up against, as Twitter user @Behnisch points out below:
This is getting boring. #ucldraw pic.twitter.com/c9jw4F1HaH
— AB (@behnisch) December 12, 2016
The table shows that in the past eight seasons, Arsenal have drawn at least one (usually two, in fact) of Bayern, Barcelona, Olympiakos and Borussia Dortmund.
To break that down a bit further, they have only ever faced Dortmund and Olympiakos in the group stages, with their Barca meetings all happening in the knockouts.
That bizarre statistic reached its peak last season when the Gunners faced three of the four teams (avoiding the clean sweep as Dortmund didn’t qualify for the competition), wherein the finished second in a group that included Bayern and Olympiakos (with one win and one defeat against both) before losing to Barca in the first knockout round.
In terms of their European history, this will be Arsenal’s eleventh and twelfth meeting against Bayern – easily more than any other opponent. Of the previous ten, they have won three, drawn two and lost five.
(Barca, incidentally, are the next highest on nine, with Dortmund and Olympiakos (along with Panathinaikos and Ajax) on eight.)
With Carlo Ancelotti’s side looking a little less dominant than in recent years (though they have just reclaimed top spot in the league from RB Lepizing) this may be Arsenal’s best ever chance in finally getting the monkey off their backs, but the respective mindsets of these two could look very different in February.
And should they finally overcome their Bavarian opponents, they can be safe in the knowledge that either Barcelona or Dortmund will be waiting for them in the quarter-final…