Arsenal's 1-1 Champions League draw at Rosenborg Trondheim was a painful reminder for manager Arsene Wenger that his English Premier League masters are still only apprentices in Europe.
Wenger had hoped their opening 1-0 win over PSV Eindhoven a fortnight ago, however fraught, would have freed his players' minds from the demons of under-achievement.
Arsenal have never progressed beyond the quarter-finals of Europe's premier club competition and their traumatic start last season, with just one point from three games, was a factor in that laboured win over PSV.
Wednesday's draw, in which Arsenal enjoyed plenty of possession but failed to make it count, showed they have yet to learn the lessons of those past failures.
Rosenborg were never going to make things easy for Wenger's side. The Norwegians stuck at the task of closing down space in their final third, disrupting Arsenal's passing game and doing what they could to keep Thierry Henry at bay.
Yet Arsenal could still have found a way through, had they shown the killer instinct which has kept the English champions unbeaten in the Premier League since May, 2003.
Their failure to build on a sixth-minute lead from Fredrik Ljungberg was punished by Roar Strand's second-half equaliser and nearly 40 minutes of huffing and puffing around the Rosenborg penalty area failed to create a winner.
EUROPEAN FRUSTRATION
Wenger had no doubts about where the blame lay. "If you look at what our keeper had to do, it's a very frustrating result," the Frenchman.
"We (only) really came into the game when it was 1-1. Before that, we were a little bit too cautious and didn't do enough going forward. I feel we conceded the goal because of that.
"It's a game we should have won, but that's the Champions League. If you do not have the right concentration for 90 minutes you are punished...at this level, you have to take the points when you can."
Though his side dropped two of them in Trondheim, Arsenal's campaign to reach the knockout phase is hardly going off the rails.
They still lead Group E on four points, one ahead of PSV and Panathinaikos, who Arsenal face in Athens on October 20 in a game in which a win for the visitors would all but secure their passage.
Skipper Patrick Vieira admitted his team's disappointment but remained upbeat.
"In the end, it's one point," he said. "It's better than nothing."
