More misery as all hopes go Dutch

LAST WEEK’S ignominious European exit was all the more difficult to take, with the other three Premiership sides all occupying highly-prized berths in the last eight of world football’s most prestigious competition.

What’s more, with Barca out and Milan struggling for form, it appears that the one trophy that continues to elude our illustrious club, is there for the taking this season. Hopefully Valencia’s David Villa might yet have some say in this argument. Yet I can’t help but feel that Bayern Munich could be the only team left with the necessary Champions League credentials, to be capable of perhaps putting a spoke in the pretensions of the Premiership sides.

At the time, understandably, Alexander Hleb was crucified for sacrificing our last remaining chance of any silverware this season. However I was left feeling sorry for him, as although he was the obvious scapegoat as a result of his naïve and utterly needless foul which led to PSV’s all-important away goal, his was merely the penultimate act in the miserable pot-boiler of Arsenal’s failures in the past couple of weeks.