Arsene Wenger has only disappointment to show for his 200 European games

Ending a five-year wait to finish top of a Champions League group was rightly cause for celebration at Arsenal on Tuesday night, and no little relief. Instead of the Gunners' annual travails, Paris Saint-Germain were instead left thrashing around helplessly after throwing top spot away on the final day. "We will have less guilt because we feel we’ve done the job," said Wenger, who must have been tempted to add: "for once".

But a fortifying night also brought attention to a deeper problem which has remained unaddressed over two decades. Arsenal’s victory in Switzerland was Wenger’s 200th European match as Arsenal manager. It is both a remarkable achievement and an invitation to reflect that so much effort and energy has been expended without a single trophy to show for it.

Wenger transformed English football in the late 1990s and is responsible for one of its greatest ever sides: the 2003-04 Invincibles. But his impact on the European stage has been far less profound, even disappointing.

Defeats in the 1992 Cup Winners’ Cup final, as Monaco manager against Werder Bremen, the 2000 UEFA Cup final against Galatasaray and the 2006 Champions League final against Barcelona stand out as his most painful failings - an unwelcome hat-trick across three competitions. But it is his record as a whole on Europe’s biggest stage which highlights his consistent underperformance.

Eleven managers have taken charge of 75 or more matches in the Champions League era and only two have failed to win the competition. Wenger of course is one, and with 182 games is second to only two-time winner Sir Alex Ferguson (192) in the all-time list.

Next comes Carlo Ancelotti (148 games; three wins with two clubs), Jose Mourinho (133 games; two wins with two clubs) and Mircea Lucescu, who like Wenger has no win to his name despite taking charge for 103 games. Louis van Gaal (95 games, one win), Rafa Benitez (95, one win), Ottmar Hitzeld (95, two wins with two clubs), Pep Guardiola (92, two wins), Fabio Capello (78, one win) and Marcello Lippi (76, one win) complete the list.

Lucescu has taken charge of Champions League matches as manager of Galatasaray, Besiktas, Rapid Bucharest and Shakhtar Donetsk. Aside from a three-game stint at Inter, his clubs have not come from Europe’s best leagues. By contrast, Wenger has been operating in a league which is one of the continent’s most powerful and yet his entire opus at Arsenal has been limited to two semi-final appearances, and one final.

Wenger’s first European disappointment at Arsenal in fact came three days before he officially started work – although he bore some tangential responsibility. Going into a UEFA Cup second leg against Borussia Monchengladbach 3-2 down from the first leg at home on September 25, 1996, Arsenal took a 2-1 lead through Ian Wright and Paul Merson but eventually went down 3-2 on the night, 6-4 on aggregate.

Wenger was watching from the stands but accompanied caretaker manager Pat Rice on the touchline in the second half. Wenger, Rice said, had suggested “one or two changes… One of them was to go to a back four and add extra width to the attack, and of course I took his advice. We've come out of this with a lot of credit and will bounce back in typical Arsenal style."

The following season was a similar story, though, Arsenal losing over two legs again in the first round, this time to PAOK of Greece. And although Wenger has been ultra-consistent in reaching the group stages of the Champions League in the 19 seasons since, Arsenal have made consistently hard work of the competition. It took until 2001 to reach the quarter-finals for the first time, then another five years until the semi-final and final as Arsenal were beaten by Barcelona on a rainy night in Paris.

“There are many worst (moments), Thierry,” Wenger told his greatest ever goalscorer in an interview with Sky Sports earlier this year. “Unfortunately, in the career, maybe the Champions League final that we lost. We were 13 minutes away from winning the final.”

In the decade since, Arsenal have been trapped in a perpetual time loop of disappointment, only reaching the quarter-finals three more times and the semi-final once, when they were left emotionally hollowed out by a defeat to Manchester United in 2008-09. One of the most raucous atmospheres the Emirates Stadium has ever experienced was completely deflated after eight minutes when Kieran Gibbs slipped to allow Park Ji-Sung to score the first goal in a 3-1 win.

The past six seasons alone have seen Arsenal come up against a brick wall in the last-16. Multiple draws against Barcelona and Bayern Munich have not helped, but the away goals defeat to Monaco in 2014-15 was rather less forgivable. Even taking into account the lowering of Arsenal's ambitions after the 2006 Paris final while the move to the Emirates was paid for, this record is not one to shout about. It has been a story of admirable consistency, but not much more than that.

Should Wenger have done better, with the players he has brought to the club and the financial strength endowed on Arsenal by the Premier League? Undoubtedly.

Arsenal were England’s dominant force between 2001 and 2004, winning two league titles and narrowly missing out on another that should not have slipped from their grasp. In 2003-04, as they went the season unbeaten, Arsenal also had the best chance they will ever have to win the Champions League. But Wayne Bridge silenced Highbury and Chelsea went through to a semi-final meeting with Monaco, in the year that Mourinho eventually steered Porto to glory. Arsenal were far better than all three teams and quite possibly Europe’s best at the time.

But that ultimate validation still escapes Wenger, a man who for all his immeasurable contribution to football still has one big asterisk next to his name. Arsenal may be into the last-16 again, this time as group winners, but after 200 matches, Wenger appears no closer to addressing this central fact.