Bayern Munich 5-1 Arsenal: 5 Talking Points

Bayern Munich put on a master-class performance on Wednesday night to beat Arsenal 5-1 at the Allianz Arena in their Group F encounter. Goals from Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller, David Alaba and Arjen Robben saw the Bavarian side play the Gunners off the park to heap more misery in their quest to reach the Round of 16. Olivier Giroud scored the only goal for Arsenal who had a first-half equalizer ruled out for a Mesut Ozil handball.Here are the major talking points from the game.

#1 Bayern Munich dominate and exact revenge

Pep Guardiola’s side were unbeaten in the Bundesliga and Champions League this season until their trip to the Emirates a fortnight ago. The Spanish manager has always had mixed results in North London and his side were put to the test when Wenger came out on top in a must-win game for the Gunners. 

The Bavarian side were clearly hurting and they saw this as an opportunity to bounce back and announce their intention to fight for the only trophy they are yet to win in the Guardiola era. Arturo Vidal had been very vocal in the press and had said, “We'll show Arsenal the real Bayern on Wednesday.”

And that’s exactly what they did. They home side had 69% of the possession and took 23 shots on goal – 13 of which were on target (a record against Arsenal in the Champions League). In contrast, Arsenal could only muster two shots on target over the course of the 90 minutes. 

The heat maps also show that Bayern spent more time in Arsenal’s half. For the majority of the game, Giroud was the Premier League side’s furthest man forward, and he was stationed near the centre-circle, barely able to make forays into Bayern’s half unless Arsenal countered.

The 5-1 result is Arsenal’s heaviest defeat in Champions League history, their previous worst being the 4-0 mauling at the hands of AC Milan at the San Siro in 2012.