Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was left scratching his head for answers today after his team once again failed to convert their domestic strength into progress on the European stage.
Arsenal's 2-1 defeat at Valencia last night ended their Champions League campaign before the quarter-final stage for the second successive season and exposed his gifted team's lack of experience in Europe's toughest club competition.
Wenger bemoaned what he saw as the gamesmanship of the Valencia players. But what Wenger considered gamesmanship was more a question of Valencia exhibiting the experience and know-how required to kill a game that could be expected from a club who reached the Champions League final in 2000 and 2001.
"After they scored their second goal there was no game at all," Wenger told British reporters. "Every time we went near them they lay down and stayed down.
"It spoiled the game because it was impossible for us to play football. I'd like to know how many minutes we actually played after their second goal, I don't think it was many."
Arsenal have never been beyond the quarter-finals of Europe's premier club competition. Last season they also went out at the second group phase. The season before Valencia knocked them out of the quarter-finals when giant Norwegian striker John Carew, scorer of both goals last night, grabbed the decisive goal.
Success in Europe is paramount to the French manager, who can claim to have cracked it on the domestic front with two English league and FA Cup doubles in five seasons.
But in contrast to their fierce rivals Manchester United, the 1999 Champions League winners who have qualified easily for the quarter-finals of this season's competition, Arsenal still look naive on the European stage. Wenger seemed mystified.
"I don't think we deserved to lose this game," he said. "People can say what they like about why we are out but this is the only game we have lost in the group.
"It is difficult to say where the responsibility lies. You have to look at the whole club, not just the coaches and the players. We are all in the same boat. We have nothing to be ashamed of - it is an unfortunate loss."
PA