Arsenal went out of the Champions League tonight thanks to an impressive 3-1 win for Bayer Leverkusen in La Coruna. The Germans actually end up topping the group, a bizarre result given Arsenal's experience of the other 3 clubs in our group, but you can't argue with the fact that they got the results against Deportivo.

But it has to be said that on this evening's performance, Arsenal did not deserve to go through.

Perhaps the fact that even a win might not be enough had the players confused about how to approach the game. They ended up hardly approaching it all all.

Wenger left Wiltord on the bench till 15 minutes from the end, incredible really given the fact that Henry was repeatedly finding himself isolated. Henry, having fought a lone battle for most of the game, had a penalty equaliser saved in the second half. He hit it the same as last week's, the keeper guessed right and was lucky when the rebound off the post went to a defender.

Despite edging the first half, against a reserve Juve side who were slightly less interested than our players, Arsenal created few clear cut chances. Pires missed the best one after Henry set him up, but Bobby's typical far post curler failed to curl for once. Freddie had the ball in the net and was wrongly given offside, and he and Henry had a few half chances.

But Juve always looked like they might have a goal in them, and it took that goal to wake Arsenal from their slumbers. The fact that we looked like getting back into the game for the last 10 minutes only underlined how peculiar it was that we were so disintersted before that.

As things worked out, it didn't matter. But if Deportivo had drawn level with Bayer Leverkusen, this loss would have gone into the history books as a truly shameful one.

Wenger is defiant, saying that Arsenal can win the Champs League next year. Perhpas, but we're going to have to learn to travel. European Arsenal need to take lessons in application from Domestic Arsenal.

For the record, Arsenal finish 3rd in the group above Juventus on the head-to-head results. See table.

It's worth noting that our fixture congestion has just been eased somewhat. Our match against Charlton can go ahead on April 1st, and the West Ham game will also presumably be rearranged for one of the midweek dates freed up by the CL exit.