Arsène Wenger is resisting the sense of crisis over English football’s collective exit from the Champions League. Although this is the second time in three years that the quarter-finals will be drawn with no English presence, the Arsenal manager’s analysis boiled down to Manchester City’s bad luck to be drawn against a breathtaking Barcelona, and Arsenal and Chelsea succumbing via the away goals rule. That rule has frustrated him for a while. Wenger certainly did not go into it as an excuse for Arsenal’s particular failings – the blame for that lay squarely at their shortcomings in the first-leg defeat against Monaco – but as a long-time advocate for it to be scrapped he...
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