Arsenal 3-1 Bayern Munich: Gunners shred Germans' cloak of invincibility as Mikel Arteta teaches Vincent Kompany a lesson with statement Champions League win

A statement performance from Arsenal yielded a statement win. Beating a meek and mild Tottenham in the North London derby is one thing, downing a hot and hungry Bayern Munich three days later quite another.

Vincent Kompany’s German champions arrived in London wearing a cloak of invincibility. Arsenal tore it from them and hung it from the ramparts of Fortress Emirates.

Bayern, unbeaten all season, were given a lesson here. Arsenal were quicker, stronger and largely just better.

A tight game at half-time – Bayern teenager Lennart Karl cancelling out a Jurrien Timber header – it was nothing like it in the second period. Arsenal were rampant, Bayern in desperate and at times undignified retreat.

And when Gabriel Martinelli skipped past a stranded Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to score a third goal in the 77th minute to add to Noni Madueke’s second a few moments earlier, Bayern had reached that stage where they just wanted to get out of here with dignity. Not so dissimilar to Tottenham after all, then.

Just about everything Arteta and Arsenal touch turns to gold at the moment. This is a team that hasn’t lost since August’s reverse at Liverpool. How long ago that seems.

Here, Arteta’s substitutions helped his team win the game, Mudueke and Martinelli scoring and Riccardo Calafiori assisting for the second. Martin Odegaard also returned to action from the bench. A rare old perfect night indeed and what a performance of such dominance and vitality will do for these players is obvious.

With each big victory, so grows the feeling that Arsenal can go where they have threatened to for so long. And when a game is won in such fashion, when a big name opponent is not just beaten but brushed aside, then horizons widen. Arsenal are favourites to win the Premier League and this result puts then firmly in the conversation for European football’s big prize too.

Briefly, at the start, Bayern had been the better team, dominating possession like few teams have done here. But still a familiar thing happened – Arsenal scored.

Harry Kane, the scorer of 24 goals this season but without a sniff here, had said the day before the game that he thought the Premier League was losing some of its allure as the return of set piece goals and more direct football makes itself known across the country. At least the England captain knew what was coming, then.

Twenty two minutes had passed when Declan Rice took a corner on the right. Neuer was barged a little before the ball came in but was unimpeded by the time he made a clumsy attempt to beat Timber to the ball. Neuer was late on the scene and Timber glanced the ball in from six yards.

‘Foul on the goalkeeper’ was the clear plea from Kompany to the fourth official but there was nothing doing. Bayern had been undone by one of the smallest players on the field and were now facing a real challenge.

Briefly they threatened to meet it as the Germans broke to score fabulously. This was direct football but with a bit of razzamatazz tied to it.

Joshua Kimmich’s raking pass to the right wing found Serge Gnabry with the run on Myles Lewis-Skelly and his superb volley on the gallop squared the ball to young Karl who rammed it past David Raya from eight or nine yards. It was one of the best goals to have been scored here this season and the competition is high.

Arsenal were briefly a little stunned and Arteta was booked for screaming for a free-kick too enthusiastically. But the second half brought only Arsenal pressure. Bayern couldn’t live with the home team’s intensity.

Rice was fabulous – a constant driving menace in the centre of the field – but so were many others.

Bayern, meanwhile, didn’t cope with Arsenal’s corners all night. The home team had four in the first 15 minutes of the second half and could have scored from all of them. Kompany grew ever more agitated and he too was booked.

Arsenal’s second goal came in the 69th minute and had its roots in a Bayern mistake as Dayot Upamecano passed the ball straight to Rice. But when he slipped in Calafiori, Arsenal’s ruthlessness was clear. A cross to the far post found Madueke hungrier than two opponents and he arrived first to score.

In among all this, Bayern created just one chance, Karl making a mug of Lewis-Skelly before scampering on to shoot far too close to Raya. Lewis-Skelly – playing in front of watching England coach Thomas Tuchel – will not going to the World Cup if he plays like this. His performance was perhaps the only disappointment here.

It was a niggly game at times and that helped the atmosphere. Occasionally the Italian referee struggled to control it.

But Madueke’s goal freed Arsenal to play with even more confidence and energy and the clinching third goal was a horror show for Neuer in particular. The great goalkeeper will turn 40 next spring and he had a bad night here, capped by a decision to dash out to intercept Martinelli’s sprint clear with 13 minutes left.

Neuer was never going to get there and didn’t. And as Martinelli rolled the ball in to an empty net, so a victory was clinched and realisation that dawned that this Arsenal team may just have what it takes to do something remarkable this season.