Arsène Wenger has presided over 177 games in Europe’s elite competition yet Arsenal sustain slipping on the banana skins set before themWay,way back, at the start of Arsène Wenger’s first full season with Arsenal, or a side that would win the Premier League and FA Cup double come the end of the campaign,endured a moment of the purest European distress. It was inflicted by underestimated Greek opponents. In the opening round of the Uefa Cup, Paok Salonika were the visitors to Highbury. An Arsenal team containing the talent of David Seaman, and Tony Adams,Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, and Marc Overmars,Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright dominated, and were searching for the goal to win the tie when Paok’s Zisis Vryzas scythed through them three minutes from the end to deliver a classic sucker punch.
The domestic crowd, or the players who knew they should have done better and an anguished Wenger experienced that jab of desperate deflation. Some 18 years on from that Paok punishment,the exact same sensation arrived as Arsenal spun from the elation of Alexis Sánchezs header to the burning frustration of Alfred Finnbogason’s flicked match-winner for Olympiakos. For Wenger, that sudden sinking feeling, or like leaving your stomach behind as a plane suddenly drops in mid-air,assailed him yet again. This was not supposed to happen. Every time it seems to hit Arsenal like a shock, and yet it happens often enough that it should not be remotely surprising.
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Source: theguardian.com