PSG 2-1 Arsenal (3-1 agg): A bridge too far

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

I won’t lie to you, I’m sad. I went to bed sad; I had sad, intermittent sleep; and I woke up sad; so that will probably be reflected in this post. I hope you will allow me that indulgence this morning. I’m just a fan like anyone else, and to come this close to a Champions League final and miss out really hurts.

The team was as predicted, but I don’t think anyone would have predicted Arsenal’s start to the game. It was almost like someone did a complete switcheroo with last week. I thought it was important that we get a foothold early, but this was seriously impressive from the first whistle.

We should have been ahead in the third minute, just like PSG were last week. Rattled by our energy, they gave the ball away in their own half, Jurrien Timber crossed and Declan Rice headed just wide. Maybe that reflects the difference to some extent. Ousmane Dembele took his chance at the Emirates, Rice couldn’t quite find the target.

That was followed by a long throw from Thomas Partey, Gabriel Martinelli made contact as it dropped, but it hit the knee of Gianluigi Donnarumma and bounced away. For me, that was not really a save, per se, the ball was hit straight at him, but what he produced minutes later to deny Martin Odegaard was genuinely extraordinary. As the ball fell for the captain outside the box, he absolutely put his foot through it, the ball whistling towards the bottom corner through a sea of legs. However, the Italian, who had to have seen it even fractionally late, got down to make one of the best saves I’ve ever seen to tip the ball around the post.

At the other end there was danger when Khvicha Kvaratskhelia stepped inside Timber and curled a shot off the post, but we were well in it. A mistake at the back saw a chance for Desiree Doue but David Raya was equal to the tame shot, before another small error led to their opening goal. Rice took a heavy touch from a Raya pass, fouled Kvaratskhelia and got booked, and they had a free kick deep in our half. It was headed out by Partey, perhaps not as convincingly as you’d like, Fabian Ruiz worked it back onto his left foot under not enough pressure from Martinelli, and his shot flew in off the midriff of Saliba. Perhaps it would have gone in anyway, he certainly hit it well, but the deflection didn’t help.

I think that rattled us. We gave the ball away high up the pitch leaving space for a counter, and only for a last-ditch intervention from Rice who had chased 50-60 yards to get back, it might have been game over then. 1-0 at half-time wasn’t ideal, obviously, but it was far from over given what can happen in games like this.

What was clear as the game began again was that Arsenal had, on paper at least, identified something in PSG they thought they could expose with long-ball stuff. Early in the second 45, we had a free kick just inside our half which ordinarily we’d take and keep possession ticking. This time, we pushed everyone up and Raya pumped it. I don’t think that tactic worked. Between the two PSG centre-halves, they made 18 clearances, meat and drink stuff really, and with our insistence on Partey’s mostly-ineffective long throws, it didn’t feel very … us.

Still, there was another chance which Saka put right into the top corner. I honestly think it’s a goal against most keepers in the world, but once again Donnarumma’s fingertips prevented us scoring. Just after, Saka went down in the box, play went on and a shot deflected into the arms of Raya. Minutes later play was stopped as the ref was asked to go and check for a penalty. Having not seen anything else, I assumed it was for the Saka incident, instead replays showed the ball hitting Lewis-Skelly’s hand from that PSG shot and the ref awarded them a penalty.

It is absurdly harsh, in my opinion, nobody even claimed it, but the handball rule is what it is, especially in Europe. It’s a law that must be changed, but in the current climate, you see them given a lot in UEFA competitions. Vitinha stepped up, produced the most laughable run up of all time, and justice was served when Raya made the save. That should have been the moment for us to take advantage of the disquiet a miss like that can produce. If they’d scored, that was it, but with 20 mins + injury time to go, there was still time.

Instead, we gifted them another. Jakub Kiwior gave it away in midfield, they came forward, and Partey was caught on the ball just outside the box. It’s terrible from a player of that experience in a game of this magnitude, Hakimi applied the finish and it was 2-0 on the night and 3-0 on aggregate. Arteta brought on Riccardo Calafiori and Leandro Trossard for Lewis-Skelly and Martinelli, and the Belgian was involved in the goal we scored. Perhaps there was a touch of good fortune not to have conceded a free kick but the ref was pretty consistent about those kinds of challenges, the ball broke for Saka in the box and he rounded the keeper to make it 2-1.

That was 77′, we needed two goals, and I think my main frustration from last night is that we didn’t have as much threat on the pitch as we could have for the closing stages. Sacrifice a defensive-minded player like Partey, and bring on Ethan Nwaneri. Arteta can, with some justification, bemoan the absence of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus to some extent, but only Trossard and Saka have more goals than Nwaneri this season, so I don’t understand why he didn’t get on. I know Arteta can be risk-averse at times, but this is a Champions League semi-final, you have to throw everything at it.

For me, what underpins much of this season’s frustration is that, as a club, I don’t think you can make a good case that we gave ourselves the best possible chance of success this season because of what we did, and didn’t do, in the transfer windows last summer and in January. Last night was a microcosm of that, we didn’t give ourselves the best chance of producing what would have been something miraculous, I accept, because we wanted to keep a guy on to do some pretty middling long-throws that PSG ate up all night long.

Still, there was another glorious chance to score, Saka putting a Calafiori cross over the bar from close after being left unmarked. PSG were wobbled, I wish we’d gone hell for leather at them with another attacking player on the pitch. That is my big regret from last night, but I accept we put ourselves in a difficult position with the goals we conceded that were strongly connected to mistakes we made that we really shouldn’t have.

The final whistle went. I switched the TV off. I didn’t want to see them happy and I didn’t want to see our lads sad. I still don’t, to be honest. Afterwards, Arteta made it clear how he viewed things, saying:

First of all, congratulations to PSG for being in the final. Talking about merits, I think we deserved much more. When you analyse both games, who has been the best player, the MVP has been the same player, the goalkeeper, and the Champions League is decided in the boxes, and he has won the game for them.

I think you can absolutely say he was, by some distance, the best player in both games. He made big saves in the first leg, and even better ones last night. If our goalkeeper had done that, he’d rightly be praised to the hilt for it, and I think any fair analysis of that last night has to acknowledge how good he was. At the same time though, our issues with putting the ball in the back of the net have been a feature of this season. I’m not blaming Rice, let me be clear, but if he heads home after 3 minutes last night, we probably have a different game and a different tie. If Saka scores that late chance do PSG crap the bed and we have a grandstand finish?

Fine margins, call it what you will, but they took their chances we didn’t. Arsenal produced over 5xG over the two-legs and scored just once. That old one goal thing again, eh? So, while we can rightly give Donnarumma the props for some outstanding goalkeeping, it seems pretty clear to me where improvements have to be made to this team. I don’t even think there’s any debate about this.

Your mileage may vary on this, by the way, but I’m all right with Arteta’s message of pride for his players in his post-game press conference:

I’m very proud to coach the players that we have, and within that, we create chances and situations and normally they are goals. We have to arrive in the competition at this stage with a full squad, full available, in best condition. We haven’t got that, so let’s put that aside. It’s still the team that I’ve seen today against, probably one of the best, if not the best team in Europe, it gives me so much pride, but at the same time I’m so upset, so annoyed that we didn’t manage to do it.

Is there a message there about ‘the players that we have’? Perhaps, because you can see the difference. It’s not just injuries, although they obviously don’t help, but how the squad has been constructed. Going into last night, however it transpired, I wanted to see an Arsenal team that gave it a go, that did themselves justice, and I think – for the most part – we got that. We made chances, we caused them problems (as well as ourselves), we played with some intent and rattled them at times. PSG knew they were in a game, and I think the players did their best, even if one or two fell short of their best level on the night, that can happen. It was honest effort, but ultimately not enough.

In the end though, when you’re starting a Champions League semi-final with a central midfielder up front, and with just one other attacking change deemed suitable for a game like this by the manager, you have to ask questions. PSG showed us what you need in terms of quality and squad depth. I think Arsenal have done well to go from a quarter-final last season in our first year back in the Champions League, to the semi-final this time around, but against both Bayern and PSG the lessons have been obvious.

We knew last year this was a team that needed more in attack after we struggled to score in Munich but we didn’t do anything about it. Perhaps it’s too simplistic to say that was what cost us last night, but it’s hard to escape that conclusion. What would proper squad building and investment in our forward line have done over the course of these two games, or indeed the season as a whole? I think we all more or less know the answer to that, and it’s a lesson that has to be heeded this summer.

Football tells you things with performances and results, and the message this season has sent is absolutely clear. So, I’m on board with the effort these lads have put in to get so close to a Champions League final, and while I think Arteta deserves credit too for managing this team through a difficult season for all kinds of reasons, he also has to take some responsibility for what we were missing. From top down, owners to board to manager, it’s their job as a collective to build a squad capable of winning, and they got it wrong last summer and in January.

The consequence of that is another nearly season. Another campaign that promised something special but ends with nothing. Maybe that’s the sadness talking, but as I said above, I don’t think we did our best with our recent transfer windows, and the price of that is obvious when you look at the Premier League table and our inability to score the goals we needed at the business end of the Champions League.

‘Make it happen’, was the pre-game slogan. Perhaps the one for this summer should be: ‘Make it better’.

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As for what now with the games we have remaining, I can’t even start to think about that today. We’re already 2000+ words in. I need to ruminate a bit. For those who have the appetite, we will have an Arsecast for you a bit later on.

For now though, picture a sad puppy. That’s how I feel.

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