COMMENT: The Gunners' 3-1 defeat to Arsene Wenger's former club was among their most humiliating experiences in Europe
A banner held aloft among the away support here before kick-off proclaimed thanks to Arsene Wenger for everything he had done for Monaco.
They didn’t know that, 21 years after leaving the club, he had one final gift for the Ligue 1 club.
Arsenal’s dreadful 3-1 home defeat on Wednesday leaves them staring at a Champions League last-16 exit for the fifth season in a row.
When Yanick Ferreira-Carrasco fired in Monaco’s third with virtually the last kick of the game, the whole visiting bench ran on to the pitch to celebrate, pumping their fists towards the sky, Jose Mourinho-style. The 3,000 colour co-ordinated travelling fans could barely believe it as they lit flares and made this pocket of north London their own.
They knew that it was the goal that leaves Arsenal requiring a miracle to progress to the quarter-finals, needing to score at least three times in the return leg next month.
There has been no shame in Arsenal's recent eliminations by some of the best teams on the continent in Bayern Munich, Barcelona and AC Milan. At the same stage last season, Arsenal also lost 3-1 at home against against a Bayern side trying to defend their trophy.
But this year they didn't even wait for a top side as they were embarrassed by the same scoreline against what was essentially a Monaco B team missing five of their best players through injury.
A team that scored just four goals in their group campaign but could easily have reached double figures for the competition with the chances they had tonight.
The matchday programme featured a cardboard cutout of Wenger and judging by the boos at full-time, some of the 60,000 supporters here feel ready to cut him out of the club.
This was the perfect example of why Wenger will never be able to take Arsenal back to the top level.
Only six times in Champions League and European Cup history has a team gone through after losing the first leg at home and the chances of Arsenal making it seven fall somewhere between slim and none.
They got exactly what they deserved against a Monaco team that came with a gameplan and executed it almost perfectly.
Unforgivably, the Arsenal players appeared to be sucked in by the pre-match talk that this would be an easy tie, they expected to cruise through a Champions League knock-out game as though it was Middlesbrough at home in the FA Cup.
The Gunners started brightly enough, but quickly ran out of ideas before producing an abject performance riddled with individual errors.
If there was a touch of misfortune in the deflected strike from Geoffrey Kondogbia for Monaco’s 38th minute opener, the second goal for the visitors was all of Arsenal’s own making.
Eight minutes into the second half of a two-legged tie, Per Mertesacker charged as far away from Anthony Martial as possible, allowing the winger to race through and tee up former Tottenham man Dimitar Berbatov to score.
It was suicidal defending, as Wenger put it, as bad as anything you will see all season - at any level, let alone Europe’s premier competition.
At the other end, Arsenal struggled to create chances and when they did, Olivier Giroud somehow managed to miss an open goal from six yards to audible gasps from the stunned crowd.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s curler from 25 yards appeared to give Wenger’s men home in added time, before the substitute himself lost possession in the build-up to Ferreira-Carrasco's goal, which could well be the knock-out blow.
It was horror a show. Arsenal were at their very worst as they looked like being stung on the counter-attack every time Monaco got the ball.
And it was a miserable night for Wenger against the club where he first made his name as a manager.
He had no tactical response to the visitors’ set up and no way of prompting his team to play with the energy and commitment that was so badly missing.
