Pep Guardiola to Manchester City: Why Arsene Wenger should fear the arrival of Arsenal's nemesis

Arsenal manager's record against former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager makes for painful reading

Pep Guardiola looks unlikely to make Arsenal his next club (Getty Images)

When Thomas Muller fired in Bayern Munich’s fifth goal against Arsenal at the Allianz Arena in November their manager, Pep Guardiola, barely offered a reaction. A relaxed grin, a word with his playing staff; he did not even leave his seat. But then for Guardiola, beating Arsenal is nothing new.

With Guardiola set to take charge of Manchester City this summer, next season will see the renewal of a rivalry that has dealt his Arsenal counterpart some of the most painful European defeats of his career. Since 2010, Wenger and Guardiola have faced each other eight times, with the Spaniard’s record reading four wins, two draws and two defeats. Those numbers really only tell half the story however, because three times Guardiola has knocked Arsene Wenger’s side out of the Champions League – and usually in emphatic fashion.

The pair first faced each other in March 2010, when Guardiola took Barcelona to the Emirates for the Champions League quarter-final.

For an hour, Barca subjected Arsenal a lesson in possession football as Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s scored put the away side 2-0 up. Arsenal recovered, with Cesc Fabregas’s late penalty offering them hope for the second leg at the Nou Camp.

But that hope was well and truly extinguished by Lionel Messi in the second leg, as his four goals set Barcelona on their way to a 4-1 win, 6-3 on aggregate.

Wenger would not have to wait long for a chance for revenge – 10 months, to be precise, as Arsenal again faced Barcelona the following season, this time in the round of 16.

As in the previous year, Wenger’s side staged a stirring recovery at the Emirates, coming back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 thanks to Andrey Arshavin’s dramatic late winner. Again, however, Guardiola was to win the duel in Spain.

Arsenal got closer this time – even leading on aggregate through Sergio Busquets’ goal – but Messi, again, inspired Barcelona into the quarter-finals, his double securing a 3-1 win and a 4-3 triumph on aggregate.

Having built one of the greatest club sides in history at the Nou Camp, Guardiola took his genius to Germany, replacing Jupp Heynckes at Bayern Munich – the side that had knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League in 2012 - for the 2013-14 season.

Once again he and Wenger were destined to meet in the Champions League round of 16. This time Guardiola’s Bayern secured an emphatic 2-0 win at the Emirates. A 1-1 draw in the return leg was not enough for Arsenal, and for a third time Wenger found Arsenal’s European ambitions ended by his nemesis.

Wenger did, finally, gain a measure of payback in this season’s tournament, with Olivier Giroud and Mesut Ozil sealing a late – and somewhat fortuitous – 2-0 win over the Bundesliga champions in the group stage. However, Bayern’s 5-1 victory in the return leg embodied what has been a very one-sided contest between two great managers.