Arsenal‘s 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov on Thursday night in the first leg of their Europa League round of 32 tie may end up dooming the side’s chances of finishing the season with a trophy – not to mention their hopes of reaching next season’s Champions League.
Though the Gunners will fancy their chances of overturning the deficit in next week’s second leg at home, history suggests it won’t be an easy task for Unai Emery’s men, despite the supposedly superior squad and home advantage.
Arsenal have lost six straight European knockout ties in which they lost the first leg, home or a way. Overturning a deficit in Europe is not a specialty for this side.
Admittedly, in all six of those ties, they were facing a greater deficit than just the solitary goal, a fact that offers Emery and his charges some hope. There’s no impossible four-goal deficit to erase, as there was when they faced AC Milan in the Champions League round of 16 in 2012, or, infamously, against Bayern Munich just two years ago, when they followed up a 5-1 loss at home with a defeat by an identical scoreline in the away leg.
They faced two-goal deficits in the other four ties, against Bayern (twice), Monaco and Barcelona, and they actually managed to level the scores on aggregate on two occasions, once each against Bayern and Monaco, though still losing on away goals.
The last time the deficit was just one goal, however, Arsenal successfully turned things around, beating Porto 5-0 having lost the first leg 2-1 in the 2009/10 Champions League round of 16.
6 - Arsenal have been eliminated from each of their last six two-legged ties in European competition when losing the first leg – the last such tie they managed to reverse was against FC Porto in the Champions League in 2009-10 (6-2 on aggregate). Delicate. pic.twitter.com/H7FarQiG2k
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 14, 2019
That particular tie also brings into focus the other distinction between the Gunners’ current predicament and their losing streak when having lost the first leg.
This will be just the second time since the Porto tie that Arsenal will be playing the second leg at home when trying to overturn the deficit. Apart from the loss to Milan, the other five ties in question all saw Arsenal lose at home first, then travel for the second leg.
And of course, home advantage against Milan nearly saw them pull off a miracle, as they won 3-0 in the return leg in their bid to overturn a four-goal deficit.
Arsenal will no doubt be hoping to end their comeback hoodoo next week, but the task that lies ahead of them is a monumental one.
