Isn’t it great to have the Champions League back?

Look how excited we all where. It was brilliant.

Not only were we still in Europe’s Premier club competition but, for once, the draw hadn’t completely screwed us over.

That should have been our first clue.

Arsenal will have to play a serious number of games in order to play worse than they did against Monaco on Tuesday night.

It was almost as if every player in the team decided before the match that this should be the one in they designated ‘Individual Shocker Day’.

Olivier Giroud, Alexis Sanchez, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Mesut Ozil, Francis Coquelin, take your pick, add some more, unless you’re inclined to just listen to Gary Neville in which case it’s all Ozil’s fault. He’s probably responsible for global warming too.

Apart from the first five minutes of each half, Monaco held Arsenal at arm’s length, swatting us on the break with devastating effect in the manner we’ve seen all too often.

Finishing the first half with zero shots on target, Arsenal were nervy, out-of sorts and lacking direction and desire.

It was classic Arsenal for a big game and to be honest I couldn’t be bothered rehashing what happened when I’ve written the same words countless times over recent seasons.

We came up against a side who were determined to defend, had a game plan and not only could we not break them down, save the Ox’s superb long-range effort that breathed some life back into the tie for a few minutes, we couldn’t remember that we weren’t supposed to abandon our defensive posts in search of goals.

Not even the Ox, only on the pitch for less than half a half, escaped the calamity as he was at fault for Monaco’s third.

What else is there to say?

We have no injuries to blame, no referee to accuse, no poor draw to fall back on.

It was Arsenal doing what Arsenal tend to do.

Inept, disappointing, even embarrassing at times.

It was many things, but it was nothing we haven’t seen before.

“We wanted to win more than them,” said Dimitar Berbatov at the end of the game.

How often has that been the case against us?