it's the same every year for Arsenal - Ramseys first comment

The Londoners exited the Champions League on away goals and the Welsh midfielder admits they expected more having avoided drawing any tournament favourites

Aaron Ramsey has lamented Arsenal's Champions League last-16 exit at the hands of Monaco, admitting that they cannot keep coming up short.

The Gunners claimed a 2-0 victory at the Stade Louis II on Tuesday night but crashed out of the tournament on away goals despite their valiant efforts.

Ramsey, though, believes that the north Londoners had enough quality to progress, though is confident that they will bounce back domestically.

Asked if the defeat by Monaco hurt more than previous last-16 loses, with Arsenal having been knocked out at this stage in each of the last five years, the Wales international told ITV: "I think so.

"We've always played Bayern Munich, Barcelona and teams like that and no disrespect to Monaco but we thought we'd have a real good opportunity of qualifying but we gave ourselves a tough task to do from the first game.

"We've come here and we've nearly done it but that seems to be the case every year."

When probed as to whether nearly was simply not good enough, he replied: "Yeah, we have some great quality in this team and we'll stick by each other and take some positives from this.

"We still have the FA Cup to go and I'm sure there'll be many more twists and turns in the Premiership so we'll have to keep going."