Arsenal will need to summon a repeat of their last trip to Bayern Munich to stand a chance of UEFA Champions League progression on Tuesday.
Arsene Wenger’s men are 2-0 down from the first leg of their last-16 tie, but will take confidence from their last visit to the Allianz Arena at this stage last year when they won 2-0, only to be eliminated on the away-goals rule.
Toni Kroos and Thomas Muller netted for the Bundesliga outfit at the Emirates Stadium after both sides had missed first-half penalties, while Arsenal saw Wojciech Szczesny red carded.
However, if Arsenal can match the result of last March, they will at least take the tie to extra time.
“The statistics go against us at Bayern but let’s make sure the performance goes for us, then we have a chance,” Wenger said.
Winning in Munich is no mean feat – the runaway Bundesliga leaders have not lost at home domestically since October 2012.
However, a home defeat to Manchester City in the group stages of this season’s competition goes to show that Bayern are not unbeatable on home soil, particularly when it comes to English clubs.
Xherdan Shaqiri, Thomas Muller and Franck Ribery all returned from injury to fire Bayern to a 6-1 thrashing of Wolfsburg in the German top flight on Saturday, and will undoubtedly be a huge boost to their chances of making it to the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
Arsenal will be without the suspended Szczesny, while Jack Wilshere is sidelined for around six weeks after picking up a foot injury in England’s friendly victory over Denmark at Wembley on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Bayern manager Pep Guardiola insists his team must go in search of victory against Arsena.
“If we let Arsenal keep the ball, we will have a lot of problems,” Guardiola told reporters.
“They have a lot of quality, every single player has unbelievable technical skills with the ball. They have players like (Santi) Cazorla, (Mesut) Ozil, (Tomas) Rosicky and (Mikel) Arteta – it is no problem for them to keep the ball in their lines.
“So the only way to avoid that is to keep the ball for ourselves – and obviously we have to be aggressive. What I noticed about my team was that we are at our best when we just think about attacking.
