For Arsène Wenger, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, and everybody connected to Arsenal, the beauty was in the scale of the surprise. The clubs number had looked up as this contest ticked down towards the bitter end and no-one was under any illusions as to what a defeat would have meant. Arsenal have an incredible record of navigating their way out of Champions League groups but their escapology stood to face the acid test.
Everything changed inside the last two minutes and Wenger could go from feeling another worry line in his brow to creasing into broad smiles afterwards. He suggested that it had been all about making it into the last-chance saloon of those finals minutes while still within touching distance the dying embers of a top-level tie can play havoc with the nerves, he noted and, having narrowly done so, his players started swinging.