6 Truths: A new Arsenal, Lewandowski's clever trick and Barca's depth

The contours of Arsenal’s season are known well in advance: finish in the top four without sustaining a title challenge; finish second in the Champions League group and get knocked out in the last-16. Something has felt different about Arsenal this season though and this was confirmed on Tuesday night in a remarkable role reversal.

Usually it’s Arsene Wenger’s side conspiring to mess up their group campaign and come in second, but instead they cruised past Basel 4-1 at the same time as Paris Saint-Germain were throwing away top spot by drawing 2-2 at home to Ludogorets.

Arsenal are unlikely to win the Champions League – indeed they may very well draw Bayern Munich or Real Madrid in the last 16 in any case – but their unbeaten group campaign, which saw them collect 14 points while finishing top for the first time in five years, does represent definite progress.

On a brilliant night for Arsenal, it seems churlish to whinge about their defending, but the notion persists, not only that it won't be good enough against Europe's best teams, but that it might also let them down in the Premier League. Laurent Koscielny is a good player with decent attributes but is not, when it comes down to it, in the same class as Sol Campbell, Arsenal's senior centre-back the last time that they were champions.

A Basel team who played as though they were halfway through an all-dayer still created a troubling number of chances, and though Shkodran Mustafi was absent, the same was so in both matches against Ludogorets. As a pair, they may be better than Igors Stepanovs and Pascal Cygan, but they are not yet better enough.

Before Manchester City travelled to Celtic Park in late September, they’d won 10 out of 10 in all competitions and looked on course to bring Pep Guardiola yet more success. However, things haven’t gone so swimmingly since. Four wins from 14, all with a minus one goal difference, is hardly form that will intimidate their last-16 opponent, whoever that may be.

Celtic were winless in Group C coming into Tuesday’s encounter, and with City’s clash with Leicester not until Saturday evening, did Guardiola really need to rest so many? Changing the entire back four certainly didn’t give City a more solid look. Defensively, continuity often breeds success, and after conceding three against Chelsea, City’s first choice backline will hardly be confident ahead of the weekend.

Barcelona made eight changes to the team that started El Clasico, which saw all six of their summer signings start as well as Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal, who arrived the previous summer, and the way they stylishly hammered Borussia Monchengladbach suggests these were shrewd additions.

One thing the Catalans have perhaps been lacking in recent seasons is squad depth but tonight, against admittedly poor opposition, everyone knew their roll and it was classic Barca in how they dominated possession and suffocated Gladbach when they lost the ball. Having to use two or three of these ‘reserves’ in a big match shouldn’t be a concern.

Robert Lewandowski had gone four games without a goal for Bayern Munich from November 5 up until December 2 but after finding it hard going in open play, the Poland striker clearly decided to start perfecting his free-kick skills, to the extent that he managed to score exactly the same free-kick twice in five days.

Spot the difference between this against Atletico Madrid:

And this against Mainz.

Note to Bayern Munich’s coming opponents: don’t give free-kicks away in this area.

The appointment of Unai Emery was one with a clear direction from PSG's owners: they wanted progress in the Champions League. They were domestically dominant but still weren't established as a real force on the continent. Emery, a man who won three Europa League trophies in a row, was supposed to change that.

The 2-2 draw at home to Ludogorets could end up being a nail in Emery's coffin. With some terrible defending, and frankly bizarre substitutions, PSG have thrown away top spot after a good result in North London. Should PSG lose to league leaders Nice on Sunday then the vultures will be circling around Emery over Christmas.