It’s crunch time for Arsenal and nagging fears are resurfacing… Mikel Arteta is urging them to prove mettle and bag a place in Champions League semi-finals – so can they handle the heat?

All of a sudden there’s a familiar, rather apprehensive, feeling gripping the Emirates Stadium.

A sinking feeling, the sort that has you bracing yourself for the worst.

Arsenal’s nerve is being questioned again ahead of a week that could define their season following Sunday’s 2-0 home loss to Aston Villa.

There is genuine basis to those emerging doubts. We’ve seen this film before.

The capitulation at the end of last season that cost Mikel Arteta’s side the Premier League title will haunt the club until they finally win the competition for the first time since 2004.

The Gunners suffered a shock defeat by Aston Villa to dent their Premier League chances

Similarly, during the 2021/22 season, they were pipped to a Champions League spot that for so long looked to be in their grasp. The fact it was Tottenham who dipped ahead of them didn’t help matters.

The devastation of those failures linger. They are hard to shake off.

So here we are again, it’s crunch time and those nagging fears are resurfacing.

Will lightening strike thrice? Is history repeating itself? Can Arsenal handle the heat? Are they bottlers? We’re about to find out.

The stakes couldn’t be higher – a place in the Champions League final four beckons if they can triumph here in Munich on Wednesday.

On Saturday, they travel to Wolves where anything other than victory would strike a potentially fatal blow to their title ambitions.

But, first thing’s first, here in Bavaria the Gunners have an opportunity to silence those that have already written them off as perennial chokers.

Arteta, stoically, urged his side to grasp that chance on Wednesday night.

‘A performance puts us in the Champions League semi-final,’ said the Spaniard.

‘All the preparation has been to achieve that. We have earned it. We have earned it for ten months and everything we did last season, to start our journey in the Champions League after so many years.

Harry Kane and Co are out to reach the Champions League last four at Arsenal’s expense

Declan Rice looks distraught after the late 2-0 defeat by Villa and old fears are resurfacing

‘Tomorrow we have an unbelievable opportunity to make it happen.

‘Regardless of that result against Villa, it is going to have no impact on what’s going to happen here.

‘Refocus and start to build the confidence, the trust and understanding for the performance that we are going to have to put in to beat them and go through in the tie.’

Of course, exorcising the April curse that has characterised their previous two campaigns will be a tall order.

Bayern Munich. Harry Kane. The Allianz Arena. It gets your heart pumping.

With the tie finely poised at 2-2, Arsenal will enter the red cauldron on Wednesday night with belief.

So they should. Prior to Sunday’s loss, Arsenal had earned 31 from a possible 33 points in the Premier League.

‘We have to use the defeat to Villa as a reaction on the biggest stage to show everyone what we are capable of,’ said Leandro Trossard.

What’s more, Bayern are missing key players Kinglsey Coman and Serge Gnabry through injury, while Alphonse Davies is suspended.

Arteta admits he cannot control whether players recall the failures of recent years

Arsenal would face either Man City or Real Madrid if they overcome Bayern Munich 

Yet Arteta won’t need reminding that this is the month his team have spectacularly unravelled in two consecutive seasons.

In 2022, they lost five of their final 10 to relinquish the final Champions League qualification position to Tottenham.

Last year, a sequence of three victories in the final nine matches gifted the title to City.

And asked whether the pain of the previous two years will eat away at his players ahead of Tuesday’s clash, Arteta responded: ‘I cannot control that.

‘I cannot take their phones and TVs away or the people around them.

‘We didn’t lose anything last year because we didn’t win anything. What we had was an unbelievable journey against the best team in the world here and in Europe in the last seven years and this is where we want to be.

‘We are not satisfied and we want to be better and that’s the level we are competing with. we will try again our best until the last day to win those cups and be successful.

‘We have to change it and the opportunity comes there. There are lots of things we can do to write our story very differently tomorrow, we know that and it is going to be about putting in a very, very strong performance collectively and individually to earn the right to be in the semi-final.’

The margins between success and failure on nights like these are often barely visible, although Bayern will point to their 10-1 aggregate victory over the Gunners in this competition back in 2017.

Arsenal had their team run on the pitch at Allianz Arena on Tuesday ahead of the game

But, on nights like this, those margins – however big or small – are largely meaningless.

Winning is all that matters. No one remembers Champions League quarter finalists.

‘Absolutely (victory would put Arsenal to the next level). It would be unbelievable,’ added Arteta.

‘If we make it happen tomorrow and we’re in the semi final, we’ll be in a really high emotional state with something that we haven’t achieved in 15 years and that’s the opportunity.

‘Most of our players haven’t experienced a night like this, this is going to be the first one, they are super-motivated.

‘They are prepared, they feel confident and it is something that tomorrow we are going to have to show against an opponent that has this experience but we want to make it happen.’