Lukazan it's a good example of how circumstances change expectations.
It's often said that we need to acknowledge where we came form with Arteta and the impact he has had in shaping the club over the last 6 years, as if it someone atones for his mistakes. No. We can acknowledge and credit his success with putting us back among the upper tier of European football, but that in itself raises expectations and puts him beyond that point. We can't slap him on the back for getting us above 8th place forever. He's manifestly changed this club, and now he also has to live by the expectations he has set.
You'd take a Champions League at the start of the season, but now it would be overshadowed somewhat by what we've been through this season.
In a hypothetical example where we win the CL but lose the league, I don't know where that leaves us. Would be an amazing achievement to be European Champions; but at the same time it would be a hideous failure to have lost the league from the position we were in (several times in fact).
How do you square the glorious success of a CL with the sustained failure in the league?
