Arsenal were beaten 2-1 by PSG in Paris this evening, as the French side reached the final with a 3-1 aggregate win.
Arsenal made a fast start to the game as they looked to overcome the first-leg deficit, but they could not capitalise on that to open the scoring.
They met a Gianluigi Donnarumma in great form, and the Italian denied them two solid chances inside eight minutes.
His saves seemed to affect Arsenal’s players, who now had to find a way to score against him, but PSG then grew into the game, with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia hitting the post with a solid strike.
If you want to beat PSG, you must overcome Donnarumma, and Arsenal had not allowed the atmosphere at the ground to affect them.
As the game continued, the Gunners began to struggle to get a foothold in the fixture, with Martin Odegaard disappearing and Thomas Partey also overwhelmed.
PSG would soon open the scoring with a stunning volley from Fabian Ruiz against the run of play.
Conceding the first goal in Paris was the worst that could happen to Arsenal, and they were happy the break came soon afterwards after surviving at least one more PSG scare.
PSG remained solid after the break as Arsenal tried to get the next goal, and the French side always looked dangerous on the counter.
When Arsenal found a way past the PSG defence, Donnarumma was equal to the task again, only for Arsenal to concede a penalty, but David Raya saved it.
It seemed to hand Arsenal some psychological edge, but it did not last as Achraf Hakimi scored a second for PSG.
Arsenal responded immediately through Bukayo Saka, and both teams had other chances to score again, but PSG had done enough to knock out Arsenal.
This club is pathetic and clueless I rather support man u
Tootle pip then
@Sue P
😂 He probably is a ManU supporter already…😂
Please ‘go forth and multiply’ Man U are welcome to you.
GB, lovely way of saying it 😂.
Off you go then Paul, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I’m sure they’ll be grateful for your support
If they play Spurs in Final I will lol
( We will never hear end of this lol)
Lewis skelly
Odegaard
Martinelli
These guys were pathetic today
Pathetic? Oh dear what a completely unfounded juvenile comment.
You are a bigger juvenile mate.
Ruiz vs Odegaard
Kvatara vs Marinelli
Mendes vs skelly
These guys played much better and killed off the game. Enough said
More pathetic was Mikel as compared to Enrique who rested 10 men for the semis. Mikel knowing the semis would be a challenging game, tired his 10 men in a game which he planned in any case to lose to Bournemouth. What did we achieve? Jeopardized our top 2 chances in the EPL and lost the semis. He should have periodized one over the other.
Missed our chances, mainly down to a superlative performance from their keeper, they took their chances and were awarded a piss poor penalty which Raya saved. Not much to criticise, we tried our best but in the end the opposition was superior.
Spot on GB.
Look, nobody can fault our effort tonight 👏👏👏 But, i cringe at our tactics. Its all or nothing. Stoke City and Tony Pulis, never won anything with long throws and dead ball tactics. Why do we think it was good enough to win a CL. I feel that we have a good team but it is under performing, in the intelligence stakes. The way we go about games is not ever going to win us anything. Louis Enrique is a world class manager and will lead this PSG team to CL glory and probably again next season. Spot on tactics.
@Reggie
Real Talk 👍🏾
Reggie, you confuse me!!
You’ve been going on all season about our sideways and backwards, then you post that we won’t win anything with long throws and dead ball situations.
So which one is it?
I would like to remind everyone of the other teams who were in the CL from the start and fell by the wayside.
To reach the semi final of the CL is not something that is easy to do, especially when one remembers the injuries we have had.
I saw enough tonight to think that we’ll be back again next season and with a positive summer window and a full squad to choose from, I’m already raring to go.
Ken, thats exactly what I am saying. Bead tactics that have lost us the league. Safe, slow, deliberate football. Relying on set play. Why, when tonight we go all gung ho and still our main tactic is Tony Pulis dead ball and throw ins to the box. Now be honest Ken. If any other team tried to win the CL with that sort of tactic, you would be on it. Over the two legs we were in coof the play for the majority but our tactics failed. And they will fail again. It was not CL football.
I’m still not clear though – are you criticising the sideways and backward play, or the set piece and long throw ins… or both?
As you and I have previously agreed, out midfield pairing of Partey and Rice are the main reason we have won games, so we’re obviously not just bypassing them using either tactic.
As for tonight’s game, I maintain that, without their keeper, we would have won it and the same goes for the first leg.
We have already seen off RM and only lost one game before the knockout stages, due to a controversial penalty – so I don’t agree with your suggestion that we couldn’t win the CL.
But we didn’t and didn’t well.
I can remember us winning games in our PL winning seasons with long balls. I can also remember us winning the FA Cup with dead ball kicks.
Exactly – it’s all part and parcel of the game of football.
Is it. Do Real, Barcelona, Bayern play those tactics to win?
Well Reggie, we went further in the competition than two of the three you mention and went out at the same stage to the other one.
2 will win something this season though
Not in the CL they won’t and that’s what this article is about.
Not really
If we were top of League there wouldn’t be this reaction
Hence look how happy Bayern Munich are right now
I suggest you remind yourself of the reaction of the Liverpool fans when THEY lost to PSG.
They were not to pleased about being knocked out of the CL.
But Ken, those teams win the CL year in year out and Tony Pulis didn’t manage any of them. They won it with intelligent football. The best example of the Arsenal way is Martinelli. A real pain in the butt, runs up and down like Forest Gump, turns his defenders inside out but to be honest, like our football, no end product. No intelligence at all and no composure. Thats Arsenal under Arteta. Wasteful and no real direction.
Explain to me then Reggie, why is Martinelli valued at around £75 million if he has no intelligence, no composure, no end product and is a current Brazilian international?
Of course it is Ken. Earlier this season people were moaning about us scoring from corners, bet they would’ve been happy if we had scored a few tonight.
But we didn’t? Thats the point.
No, the point is they were moaning when we WERE scoring goals – that’s the point HD was making.
Ken1945,
George Graham said when asked about long ball tactics for Ian Wright, his response was whether it be a 15 pass goal or a 1 long ball pass, if it leads to a goal that’s all that matters.
We also sang our hearts out “1-0 to The Arsenal” Derek.
Still the only club to do it I believe.
Ken1945,
I don’t know about you, but I think that our football under George Graham was as bad as some would have you believe.
The team had the likes of Paul Merson, Anders Limpar, Michael Thomas, Paul Davis, and the late and great and my favorite player and always will be whoever joins Arsenal, David Rocastle. Now a team with players like that weren’t exactly sloggers were they. 😉👍
My first sentence, wasn’t as bad as some would have you believe. OOPS! my bad.🙄
TROPHYLESS again.
My beloved club. Netflix FC.
So we go again next season.
If Arsenal don’t sign a striker first this summer then it’s another TROPHYLESS season again.
All I’ve got left to say is don’t let Arsenal ruin your day or week folks. It’s a comedy after all so just laugh.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
👍😃😃
the story of the year – didn’t take chances and a few sloppy, stupid mistakes. Now I hope they keep their heads enough to qualify for CL next year. The way we are going, who knows…
We need to add maturity to this team, martinelli for me is not good enough, we need a striker and an energetic defensive midfielder, I personally think we overachieved this season. Arteta is a one way coach and hardly changes tactics. Very easily predictable. I hope he improves his way of handling matches. We might not win a trophy understand his management. I pray for the best, we must improve or allow the good lads win trophys with a better team e.g saka, Gabriel, and saliba
The match in its entirety (first and second leg) showed the level at which we are as a club.
We’re far below the best teams in terms of quality of play (tactics, players and coaching). This level is the best we can achieve.
In fact to some extent we’ve overachieved (going past an awful Madrid team).
And with our current situation in the league, things can get even worse.
So far it’s been a typical Arsenal season with Arteta at the helm.
We are not below the other top teams in most areas. The main issue we have is a lack of a cutting edge in attack.
Also, we have a relatively small squad with significant injuries through the season. We also have limited options off the bench.
Just as I mentioned; we’re below the top teams at the moment.
We crashed out of the Carabao cup in a similar fashion as yesterday. In fact against Newcastle things were arguably even worse (on semifinal there). And then you have what happened over both legs with PSG.
Juxtapose all these with another season of spectacular implosion in the league, then you’ll understand my view point.
I don’t know if getting into the semifinals as against the quarterfinals of last season and then finishing poorly on the league as against the relatively strong finish of last season can be considered a step forward or backward.
To be fair injuries we were very unlucky with injuries this season but I felt we could’ve done better.
And whose fault was it not to delve into the market to reinforce with one or two signings when the chance presented itself?
Yet there we were in the semi final of the CL, having beaten the holders and favourites home and away.
Am I wrong in thinking we only lost one game before the knockout stages as well (maybe it was two) and finished in 3rd position?
So what level are you saying we’re actually at?
Yep, one game Ken. Away to Inter, who scored a penalty, which Mark Clattenburg said at the time wouldn’t have been given this season in England, as the ball came off the torso of Merino and hit his arm.
To be fair we also got some dodgy decisions go our way in the Champions League as well
Did the lead to us scoring ?
*they
Impacted games
“this level” Do you mean amoung the top four clubs in Europe?
1. Our defense struggled individually tonight
2. The long balls, Arteta ran out of ideas but I think that was the only way we created.
3. The mentality of the players, it’s like they’re checkers. The Saka miss, Partey Saliba, Skelly-Lewis all having some brain farts. Martineli, Odegard hiding. Arsenal needs winners
*Chockers*
Disappointed… of course, but embarrassed or ashamed – definitely not. Their keeper had a brilliant night during a period of controlled play by us and PSG were dynamic in the way they scored. Congrats to them and I hope the lads recover from their disappointment to finish the season in 2nd
@ Suep, I have since most of your comments, I believe you are good with Arsenal underachieving, for a team like Arsenal it was embarrassing. This was the season we are suppose to take advantage of the weakness of some good teams and win something. Arsenal can be true winners if we become serious and not be happy with mediocrity
Mediocrity is not in my vocabulary or underachieving either
PSG was highly dynamic across the field for our Arsenal’s comfort and they deservedly won.
As Arsenal, I can’t fault the team. They gave it their best in the circumstances. Whatever could not be done, is a management issue and they are looking for a good left back to fix it.
Tyndale 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣
🙄
@Herr Drier, bar the league cup run this season look at Arteta’s record in the domestic cups since we last won the FA cup in 2020 and it’s pretty awful, he doesn’t prioritise those cups and focuses on cups we can’t win, again I stand by my thoughts on Arteta, he’s a nearly man and until I’m proven wrong he’s going down as a big bust for me, just a hype job riding off his time with Pep at City, Eddie Howe has the same amount of trophies as him and in a few weeks Big Ange could join the list! 🙄
Aston Villa put sterner test against PSG than Liverpool and Arsenal. Rice no where near his best. Ode as usual anonymous. Skelly an accident waiting to happen. Partey did not do anything special than conceding the 2nd goal which means his contract surely ends this summer. Zubi comes in. Arteta came with a plan to score in early minutes playing chaotic football. His words and what we saw didn’t match. Timber speaks volumes with his demoralized body languages in the match. Not that energetic. PSG did not have to worry much to win. That Madrid win made void and mortal by PSG back to back defeats. The future of Arteta at stake with his 6th year ending empty handed.
Someone needs to sit back and review this team from players to coaching staff, understand the missing link and fix it . If u let MA, he probably sign another left back. I still don’t understand how we have spent over 600 million pounds and we are still this short of players.
When we are ready to come to terms with the fact that Arteta is gaining experience on the job, the better for us all.
We were losing 1:0, and we went ultra attack like we were 3:0 under.
Arteta never coached even an academy to even watch to even grade his coaching. We were his first team, and it still shows 6 years on.
My gripe is he earns 15 million a year and has only an FA Cup delivered to him by quality players.
If you were a betting man, you would say this will be a repeat of more of the same next year.
He doesn’t earn that amount of money. He’s paid £9.5m per year.
He’s on £15m anually
Nope, £9.5m.
Fizzle, he coached the Man City team before joining us. Did you not know that ?
@Herr Drier
He didn’t coach the Man City team; he didn’t even coach the academy. In fact, he was only given the job because Lilo went on to coach Qatar.
What job was he given if you don’t mind me asking? I honestly thought he took up a coaching role or are we back in the realms of Arteta being Pep’s water boy?
Arteta was appointed as Assistant Coach to Pep, so presumably did some coaching.
Great effort from the lads. Did find Arteta’s post match comments unnecessarily disingenuous. Better sort the obvious shortfalls over summer. And make Rice captain.
What I love about so much of post match analysis on JA is the flurry to use oodles of football speak to annihilate either Arteta or an array of underperforming players who were never worth their transfer fee in the first place. It’s the same Sh*t, different day syndrome
My post above regarding Arteta needs to be my username. I added an extra name by mistake so please remove AdMartin to save confusion
Done
Thanks AdMartin
Bang on the money SueP. To think that this is only his second season in the CL, I would say he’s done well.
It drives me potty, HD
Roaring tunnel vision
I would say something about the majority of posters on here who want the manager sacked, but I’d be called a racist, which is something I’m definitely not, and probably banned from here.
It’s been evident that we needed a striker, instead, we got an injury prone left back that has been in treatment room more than on the field. We needed a backup creator but sold one and loan out the other. A reliable and unpredictable left forward, we relied on predictable Martinelli and brought finished Sterling as his competition.
Anyways, they gave their all and I think luck brought them this far but ran against them this time around. Up next is Liverpool. I wish them luck there and hope Liverpool players forget their shooting boots at home so we could get something out of it.
He looked wiped out SueP.
I listened carefully to what he said and I really couldn’t disagree with anything he said.
Reading the different views, I think we’re going to need a completely new squad (apart from Rice and Raya) a new manager and new owners.
I just thought we were great tonight, despite the fact that mistakes were made.
We never gave up and to see how shell shocked the players were at the end, was so sad to see, along with MA.
Three games to go and then we’ll see what happens.
Such a sad feeling of what could / should have been.
Arteta could barely speak Ken1945 during the post match interview I saw. Not because he was being disingenuous as suggested by someone earlier. He managed to get the team to the brink of the CL final having had to juggle players throughout the season in all competitions and the prize of a final was a match away. Top4 in Europe this season and some of our players have been called pathetic. Skelly who has stepped up from the academy gets lumped with that.
As you so rightly pointed out, not one of them gave up.
If we played as well in the EPL as we have in the UCL we would be a lot closer to Liverpool. PSG have been touted as the best team in the Champion’s League yet we ran them close over the two legs. Put it this way, if we had Harry Kane we would be in the final imo. If we don’t sign a top striker this summer we could end up in the same position at the end of next season. My final thought, if there is a God up there please don’t let either the Spuds or Man U win a trophy.
Can’t fault the team for effort today, but we did not win the game. Style of play was a lot quicker with greater urgency to play forward.
If we had played all year at this pace we would have won the league.
This should be the end of boring, slow and wasteful artetaball.
PSG exposed our faults and weaknesses over the two legs. Besides a striker, we need to add players with more pace and creativity in the middle of the park.
Odegaard, White and Trossard should be talking to their agent about finding another club. All three should generate at least an extra 100M, money we need to re-invest into younger, quicker and more explosive players.
Rfrancis, if they are older, slower and damp squids, why do you think they would fetch at least £100 million?
Sorry, I meant 100M in Saudi money..
Everyone will shout at me but …….
Does anyone remember who made the 200 pound bet with me lol
( Never a good time to ask so just as well get it out of the way )
Didn’t I trump it? 🤣🤣🤣
We are looking for a Graham Kerr
Now last season I let the other person off lol
But my friend just said ….if it were the other way round would he be reminding you ?
I said ……the whole site would lol
It’s just crazy how we’re expecting a miracle from a team that was never properly set up. How can you be in a race for the league, competing in the Champions League knockout stage, and your makeshift striker gets injured — yet you’re not even active in the January window? Not even a loan signing? That alone shows how serious we are as a football club.
To put it bluntly, we’ve definitely regressed as a club compared to two seasons ago when we played better, more entertaining football. This season, we’re just too robotic with our tactics. This whole inverting fullbacks (LB/RB) experiment is ridiculous. You see our wingers isolated against three defenders with no forward movement from the LB, the attacking midfielder, or the striker.
Ask yourself this: when was the last time our makeshift striker made an intelligent run that created a chance for himself? Our fullbacks are always tucked into midfield just recycling the ball — and that’s it. Enough of this nonsense trying to copy Pep. Create your own winning formula!
We were clearly a better team when our fullbacks overlapped. Saka, White, and Ødegaard were a dangerous trio against any team. As for Martinelli — the less I say, the better. How can a serious team hoping to win the league or Champions League persist with Martinelli in the starting XI given his performances over the past three seasons? All he does is run down the line and try to beat defenders with pace. Zero ability to beat his man in a 1v1 or offer any real threat. If I were a defender, I’d love to face Martinelli every day of the week.
And then there’s Raya. While a decent goalkeeper, he has serious flaws — especially in shot-stopping. DONNARUMMA & SOMMER!!!!! Showed you that ball playing isn’t first job of a goalie !!!! It’s not even second…Everyone is chasing that Pep-style keeper, and it’s getting ridiculous.
Players I don’t want to see next season:
Martinelli
Kiwior
Odegard
Tomiyasu
Carliofori
Jorginho
Am I only one who rates Calafiori?
I like him Dan. I’d prefer him in that spot to Lewis-Skelly who would be more beneficial in the midfield role he plays so well.
Yeah I agree mate.
Maybe he will end up in midfield again ?
This is the problem. Just because Skelly has done well there, Calafiori is a defender but has spent much of the season on the treatment table and so it goes on
Fantastic player but too injury prone… what’s the point of going through all these again giving our past records with injury prone players!
No Dan, I also rate him.
No. The physios rate him as great company to spend their days with.
The sides making last 4 of CL are getting habit of doing so regularly, giving themselves chances of finals and winning it – even Man City had to do the same.
Arsenal have definitely taken a step toward this year – we starting to look like we are in the right company among Europe’s elite, the performance against Real was streetwise and mature, we missed out on a final in home leg against PSG, even a 2-1 would have changed second leg adding more pressure on PSG. 2.0 from first leg would give been enough.
Love your analysis Adeski, but like most of us you are one eyed about the players you don’t want to see. My list would retain Califiori and Martinelli but would also move on Partey and Trossard. Neither will improve or give us much next season. Arteta remains by default. We can only give him the benefit of the doubt that he has learnt, will make tactical adjustments and have better luck with injuries, but this is probably only my glass half full moment.
Thanks Joe.s
Calafiori — I like him as a player, but he’s just too injury-prone. What’s the point of going through all this again and keeping a player who can’t stay fit for five games in a row? At some point, we have to be ruthless and stop settling for players who will hold us back. Heck, he got injured the first week we signed him — that says a lot.
Martinelli — I’m sorry, but he’s not up to Arsenal standards and needs to go. If we’re serious about winning titles, we can’t settle for players who lack real football intelligence or ability. It’s that simple. He’s better suited for a mid-table team that thrives on counters — and I’ll defend that statement any day.
Let me leave you with this: over the past three seasons, name one match where Martinelli has had an outstanding, game-changing performance. The only thing you can praise him for is his work rate and willingness to track back — but that’s secondary. His main job is to dominate defenders and create chances, and he consistently fails to do that. Again, if we’re serious about winning the league or Champions League, we can’t afford to settle for less.
Partey — I’d keep him for one more season, but start looking for a long-term replacement. Replacing a core player who dictates the tempo of your game isn’t easy, and we shouldn’t rush it.
Trossard — I’d definitely keep him. We need reliable squad players who can come off the bench and impact games.
I think Martinelli would be a a great player coming off the bench later in games to change things up – a couple of years ago he was pretty effective that way. Trossard is the same – he had his best production when coming in as a sub, he isn’t as good as a starter.
Agree on Calafiori, same with Tomi. Why pay people you can’t rely on.
I think we need Partey still – he had a bad day today but he has been pretty important to us on a lot of days.
Big question though – do you actually have faith that they will sort to holes we have? If Arteta is the one making decisions I am not optimistic.
to be honest Stewart, i have little to no faith in this current management
Another potless season for Arteta, another semi-final loss on his record, it’s really not looking good for him long term, I can’t ever see him winning anything for us as he chucks the domestic cups every season to focus on two competitions we’re not good enough to win, time for a change but I’m afraid it won’t be happening anytime soon, as long he gets top 5 he’s safe, the owners only care about the money, no ambition to really win things, even Man. City in their worst season for years are gonna finish above us and win the FA cup, the spuds or United are gonna qualify for the champions league and win a trophy and Chelsea are gonna win the conference league, unbelievable! 😀
Dave, he’s hardly chucked the FA Cup this or last season. Poor finishing cost us against Liverpool and Man Utd. Also how can you say he chucked the League Cup this season, when we got to the semi final ? Do you honestly think he said to the players to go out and lose both games ?
Poor finishing always costs us and nothing gets done to sort it.
Ken do you really agree with Arteta saying there was no better team than in Europe this season? We played out hearts out, but feels a stretch.
Yeah you can’t lose both games and say that
Sensible Gooner, I believe Arteta was applying that observation to teams we have faced – I can’t see how he could have judged it so otherwise.
So, on that assumption, let’s look at our record in the CL this season.
One defeat away to Inter via a disputed penalty decision was our only loss.
We finished just behind pool and barca in the “league” section and then knocked out the holders and favourites 5-1 winning both the home and away legs.
All in all, a pretty good reason for Mikel to make that statement I suggest.
Well no because we lost home and away to PSG so how can we be better?
Dan, have you never seen a better team lose to an inferior team in your time watching football?
How about when we beat manure on penalties in the fa cup final?
Would you say we were the better team that day?
Or how about when we lost 2-1 to Liverpool in the Cardiff fa cup final?
Would you say they were the better team that day?
Please don’t argue with either of these examples, as I was there and know exactly who the better side was and so do you.
Oh that Liverpool game I cried lol
We outplayed them that day
A bad comparison though as I wouldn’t say in either game we were better then PSG ?
I felt we played better then we did last week but over two legs PSG were better
Especially in the final third
I rarely seen a team over two legs be 3-0 down 170 mins in and yet be the best team in Europe though lol
Ken1945,
In both the games you mention, the losing teams must have felt like they had been mugged.
A great effort but the strategy was executed with hope more than guile and quality. We need to upgrade in several positions if we want to be consistently on a high level, winning big games, winning trophies. I don’t discount the injuries this season but even so, I am disappointed that we have for the most part been average at best. Of course there have been some great moments, like beating RM, but I just want the season to end with the hope we will remedy all our flaws in the summer.
one position needs changing more than any others I would say and that would be the manager.
Who would you replace him with?
Most times that question doesn’t get answered JBG5 – hardly surprising really as the other top managers are usually employed by other top clubs. Ancelotti will be moved on by RM but that’s it.
I don’t know who the replacement should be but I hope that the club is thinking and I hope that Arteta has been told to produce.
Let’s say that we have a good recruitment summer and we really push in EPL and Europe (even without a win). We play expansive football not being overly reliant on corners and we do not lead the league in back passes. Then I fully admit to being wrong about Arteta.
What I think will happen is that we may get the striker but we won’t expand the squad with decent support and we will run into the injury/exhaustion wall.
We will continue to play the same 11 people to exhaustion because of lack of trust in the bench. We will continue to have serious injuries with a squad lacking depth. We will continue to play this boring style of control and we will continue to make subs at 80+ minutes. If that is the case would you at least consider that Arteta is not up to the task?
Don’t misunderstand – I would very much like to be wrong. But we still haven’t secured top 5 when we had a massive lead. It may well come down to getting a win against Southampton to stay top five (the math does look better than that but who knows).
Arteta’s post-match rant was classic. That guy has gotten to be so aggravating to me. He keeps yapping and we keep winning nothing.
I thought that he should get the summer before the last two months of games but he has to go because we are going backwards. The CL run was great but we are struggling in EPL and are playing absolutely boring football.
Transfer policy is a joke – huge spending but decreasing depth, a fixation on injury-prone wingbacks and no focus on scoring goals.
He is loyal to some players to a fault and totally closed to others who probably should be given a chance based on how some of his favourites are playing. Keeping Sterling at Christmas was criminal.
The team falls down when it matters most, we make a lot of dumb mistakes and our discipline needs to be looked at – sure some of the calls over the year were bad but we keep putting ourselves in bad positions.
Feel bad for MLS but his hand moved the ball.
Yeah I said for a while he makes lots of mistakes defensively
he is young for sure and I think that he tries too hard. And having to be both the fullback and midfielder is really tough.
If only we had a left back on the bench with lots of experience who could play some games…
Stewart Macintosh,
I wonder who that left back could be.🤷♂️
now it is “could have been”.
The players gave everything they had-period!
We could have edged this with a healthy Kai, Gabriel, Saka, and a rotated team.
They were only missing the 1-2% in their finishing, psg had 2 defenders scoring ffs.
Arteta is a choker, a destroyer of men, and a failure.
Time to move on, rebuild our backline with people who can actually back up Saliba and company.
Sign a few attackers, a damn striker, and change up the mid with some playable competition for Ode.
Not pissed, just seriously disappointed as this was within grasp this year.
If it is same ole same ole I am going to tune out, if management give Arteta another year and he comes up empty again, he is not good enough for our players! ( I say January or whereabouts, and a healthy squad of players that can play and are rotated properly, if not, gtfo)
I secretly thought we would step up and blow them away, or at least make it very close – how wrong I was! I did think we’d come out fast and psg would struggle to cope and then lose confidence – this is because we have generally done well in the bigger games, and psg have a recent history of falling at the latter stages, which I thought would affect them. Perhaps if we had scored early, this would have happened.
Once psg found their footing in the game, we weren’t shaking them. Tactically, I think they were far better set up – I think the reason certain players made more mistakes than usual is because they cleverly isolated our players in possession and forced the errors. Every time they won the ball back, they looked scary on the counter – we’re usually very good at stopping that, but their pace, quality and tactical intelligence made them effective.
Well done PSG – the final will be a brilliant game, I think.
I’ll now stand by what I’ve been saying recently – arteta has had his chances and should be replaced imminently. He won’t be, though. I think he’ll get one more season, and if he can’t take us on a further step (win something major, or come *seriously* close), that’ll probably be it. We should be looking intensely at options for the manager role now (should have been for the last few months), imo.
Get Mbeumo and Gyokeres in ASAP!!!
I agree. Arteta seriously needs to get back to basics. LB and RB are not midfielders,that tactic has long been found out.
Move MLS into midfield to be a deputy for Zubimendi if he does come. Give Viera and Nwaneri more chances to provide competition for Odegaard.
I would give Arteta one more season. We can see the promise is there to be a very very good manager. He just needs to learn from his mistakes quickly and stop being stubborn in his tactics and choice of selecting some players.
Oh well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.
Over the two legs, apart form the first 30 minutes at the Emirates, I thought we competed well with them overall.
And as for their Keeper, well!. The 5 saves that stick in my memory are the two he made at the Emirates from Martinelli and Trossard. And the three he made from Martinelli , Odegaard and Saka.
Odegaard must have thought that he had scored as soon as the ball left his foot, how did a goalkeeper so big get down so quick, it was like watching inspector gadget when his left hand suddenly appeared and pushed it around the post, a superb save. There’s no denying that.
But sadly that seems to be the way with our team, they get so far and give you hope, only to dash it. I read a stat that said, it’s now 8 semi-finals on the trot in all competitions now that we’ve failed to take that next step into the final.
And as for the rest of the season, well to be honest I don’t much care about the last three games, while it would be nice to finish second and it would maintain a bit of consistency, its really neither here nor there. And no matter what the results are, I believe I’m right in saying that the only way we fall out of the top 5 is if there’s some freakish results.
So for me, it’s now looking to the summer and the transfer activity that needs to be done. And what a big summer it needs to be, they need to clear away certain players, bring in the players needed, and go again. So in summary, well done Arsenal for getting to the semi-finals, but again at the end of the day, were going another season trophy less.
I will now turn my attention to the women’s team. They’ve got two big games coming up, hopefully they will show the men how it’s done.
📢COME ON YOU WOMEN GUNNERS🏆😉👍
I’m proud of us making it to the Semis and beating Real Madrid twice on the way.
I’m not proud of what MA said last night after the match lol