Defeat to Paris Saint-Germain means Arsenal will end the season without a major trophy for the fifth consecutive campaign. Despite the disappointment, and accusations of being ‘nearly men’, there are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
When the full-time whistle blew at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday, PSG’s jubilant players all ran to one man: their captain Marquinhos. The Brazilian, now in his 12th Champions League campaign with the club, was engulfed by his teammates as Luis Enrique’s side celebrated reaching the final of the Champions League after defeating Arsenal 3-1 on aggregate.
For 11 years Marquinhos has chased Europe’s biggest prize. Eleven times he’s fallen short, most agonisingly in the 2020 final against Bayern Munich. Now, at last, he gets another shot.
Arsenal, however, will have to wait another season for theirs. After the match, Mikel Arteta was inevitably asked a barrage of questions that centred around one simple premise: Arsenal falling short again. The manager was quick to highlight Marquinhos as a fitting example of perseverance.
He said: “Marquinhos, 11 times he’s tried in this club as a winner, 11 times he’s the captain, 11 times they have to go down and up… [If] you want to be in the sport and you want to be competing and be very close to all the trophies, you better be able to deal with that.”
The message was clear: if Marquinhos can keep going, then Arsenal can do the same.
There are plenty of reasons for this side and this fanbase to be supremely confident about the state of their squad. Just look at how far Arteta has brought them.
This discourse and fallout has come after Arsenal’s first Champions League semi-final in 16 years. They’re also on course to finish second in the Premier League for a third consecutive season; the Gunners haven’t ended three successive campaigns in the top two since 2004-05. Under Arteta, Arsenal have returned to the summit of European football.
Yes, coming close doesn’t put anything in the trophy cabinet. And yes, Arteta will ultimately be judged on the silverware he delivers. But the signs are there that success is coming. This team is too strong, too consistent, and too close for trophies not to follow.
For a start, Arsenal went toe-to-toe with one of the best sides in world football at the moment over 180 minutes of football. Arteta said afterwards that he believed the best team in the competition had been knocked out. While we wouldn’t go as far as agreeing with a sweeping statement like that, there’s no doubt they competed exceptionally well.
They comfortably created more expected goals across the tie (xG: 4.54–2.89), and that margin would widen if you exclude Vitinha’s harshly awarded penalty. Arsenal produced 3.14 xG in the second leg alone – more than any other side have managed against PSG in the Champions League this season. Their 19 shots was also their most in a knockout game since registering 20 against Barcelona in March 2016.
They started the second leg in Paris with purpose. Gabriel Martinelli, Declan Rice and Martin Ødegaard all had excellent early chances, two of them denied by Gianluigi Donnarumma. Fine margins at this level often come down to moments like those, when world-class goalkeeping is the difference between winning and losing.
At the other end, PSG were ruthless. Ousmane Dembélé’s deadly finish in the first leg; Fabián Ruiz’s perfectly struck volley; Achraf Hakimi’s pinpoint curler. They punished some big mistakes brutally.
Arsenal, by contrast, missed their big moments. But looking at the squad that travelled to Paris, is that a surprise? That Mikel Merino reprised his makeshift centre-forward role for the second leg – a job he has performed admirably but is not a natural fit for – is a reflection of Arsenal’s lack of clinical edge.
The most obvious missing piece is a world-class striker. Arsenal didn’t prioritise one last summer, and they passed again in January. That can’t happen again. With greater efficiency in the final third, this could become a truly elite side.
That’s because defensively, Arsenal are already there. They were the only team in the Champions League this season to concede fewer than 1.0 expected goals per game, despite facing Real Madrid and PSG twice each.
Those numbers remain exceptional despite Arsenal not being completely flawless. There are still errors to eliminate; Hakimi’s goal came from a Jakub Kiwior mistake followed by a weak challenge from Thomas Partey. Arsenal committed 1.1 errors leading to a shot per game in the Champions League this season, the most of any side to reach at least the quarter-finals. And yet, they still came within a game of the final.
It’s also a young squad. The emergence of Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly has been hugely encouraging, with Arsenal effectively adding two first-team-ready players for free.
The Gunners’ average starting XI age in the Champions League (26y, 72d) was comfortably below the average for the competition and their lineup in the first leg against PSG was the 25th youngest ever in a Champions League semi-final.
With Bukayo Saka (23 years old), Ødegaard (26), William Saliba (24) and Rice (26), Arsenal have elite players entering their prime. They will be at this level for several more seasons.
In the Premier League, it’s harder to argue Arsenal have been unlucky. That is, after all, the purpose of the points column.
Yet, there is a level of consistency there that other teams could only dream of. Over the last three seasons, Arsenal have won 240 points and counting – only Manchester City (244) have more in that time. Arsenal have lost just 15 games in that span, the fewest of any side, and they’ve taken more points against top-10 opposition (129) than anyone else; they’ve got what it takes to beat the best teams around them.
In the last two years, their campaigns have fallen away hard towards the business end of the season due to injuries and lack of form. That looks like being the case again this season.
A lack of squad depth remains a big issue. Arsenal have 13 or 14 players at the required level to win trophies, but arguably not enough beyond that. When injuries hit, they’re exposed.
In the home leg against PSG, Arteta made just two substitutions – one in the 83rd minute, another in the 90th. It seemed crazy not to force the issue more with Arsenal trailing and playing at home. But when you look at the bench, you can’t blame him. In Tommy Setford, Jack Henry-Francis, Ismeal Kabia and Nathan Butley-Oyedeji, the bench included four players who had played one minute of Champions League football between them.
Arteta acknowledged that lack of depth post-match, saying: “We have to arrive in the competition at this stage with the full squad, [everyone] available, in [the] best condition. We haven’t got that.”
But that’s not something that cannot be fixed. If they act in the transfer market, Arteta and the club can equip this team with the final pieces, notably in attack. Up until now, they have chosen to eschew offensive firepower in favour of defensive bulk. In some sense, given Arsenal’s defensive strength, that has worked. But now that must change.
For now, the frustration is real. But it’s better to be close than nowhere at all. The fact is, Arsenal will go into every competition next season believing they can win it. In some, they’ll be close to the favourites. That’s the level Arteta has elevated this team to. They just need one final push.
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