Arsenal and PSV Eindhoven have come to treat participation in European competition as a guarantee.
The Gunners had won two European trophies before Arsene Wenger moulded the club into Champions League ever-presents for the best part of two decades. PSV have not gone without a continent clash since 1974.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their frequency in the same competitions, Arsenal and PSV are familiar foes. Despite avoiding each other throughout the 20th century, the Eindhoven outfit have played more Champions League games against Arsenal than any other club.
Here’s a complete rundown of the head-to-head record between these European regulars.
Arsenal may have claimed the league and cup double during the 2001/02 season – only the third in the club’s entire history – but they failed to win a single away game in European competition that campaign, suffering five defeats in six outings.
The Gunners began their 2002/03 continental campaign on the road with a 4-0 thumping in Eindhoven. Gilberto Silva opened the scoring after just 21 seconds to set up a ruthless and rare away win. Thierry Henry’s late brace may have inflated the scoreline but it broke the “psychological restriction” that Wenger had lamented pre-match.
It can get lost in the fog of time but Wenger’s Arsenal had an iron fist inside their velvet glove. Both Lauren and skipper Patrick Vieira received red cards in the final 25 minutes of what turned into a nervy group game against PSV in 2004, taking the tally of dismissals to a staggering 56 in Wenger’s first eight years at the club.
“He wanted to show he was captain by fighting even harder,” Wenger argued after Vieira’s foul on Park Ji-sung, who avoided Vieira’s wrath by joining Manchester United in the same summer that the Frenchman left Arsenal.
As so often was the case for Wenger’s Arsenal, they clung on to a result despite losing a player. They’d certainly had enough experience of playing with ten men, but managed well enough with nine in November 2004.
PSV’s Brazilian centre-back Alex was the subject of some scrutiny coming into the second leg of the 2007 Champions League round-of-16 tie against Arsenal. By the end of the night, his name was on everyone’s lips.
Wenger had openly questioned the link between the Dutch club and Chelsea ahead of the tie, with Alex supposedly part-owned by Arsenal’s London rivals. The Gunners lost the League Cup final to Chelsea, ironically, five days after suffering defeat in the first leg to Alex’s PSV.
Alex turned the ball into his own net at the Emirates to level the tie on aggregate but popped up at the other end in the 83rd minute, nodding in a corner to send PSV into the quarter-finals.
After the match, PSV manager Ronald Koeman mischievously quipped: “I think Chelsea will be very happy Alex scored tonight.”
With PSV confident of all three points in second-half stoppage time, the home fans broke into a spirited rendition of “Always look on the bright side of life”, in English, so that the travelling support could fully understanding the mock concern.
Former Newcastle United misfit Luuk de Jong came off the bench at half-time to swing the game, teeing up Joey Veerman’s opener before capitalising upon Aaron Ramsdale’s flapping to double PSV’s lead from a corner.
Mikel Arteta was hardly alone in judging Arsenal’s blunt performance as “extremely poor”.
Arsenal vs PSV – Complete head-to-head record
Top scorers in Arsenal vs PSV fixtures
|
Player |
Team represented |
Goals |
|---|---|---|
|
Thierry Henry |
Arsenal |
3 |
|
Edison Mendez |
PSV |
1 |
|
Freddie Ljunberg |
Arsenal |
1 |
|
Andre Ooijer |
PSV |
1 |
|
Alex |
PSV |
1 |
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