This dispiriting season for Arsenal essentially ends as it should: all of the campaign’s issues inevitably combining for one last disappointment. There was no final step to Munich and that will fairly be cast as a backward step overall.
Paris Saint-Germain have instead made a huge stride in becoming the club that Qatar so desperately want them to be. They beat their own ghosts here as much as they beat Arsenal 2-1 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate.
The actual football team are brilliant and would be worthy champions of Europe in a pure sporting sense, even if such warm words should not extend to the sportswashing project that the ownership represent. That should always be mentioned, although a battle-hardened Internazionale might yet have another say about how all of this finishes.
Arsenal’s input to the season ultimately ends with deflation in Paris, just as it did in their most memorable Champions League campaign so far, in 2006.
They couldn’t make history, as Mikel Arteta wanted, and the future remains tantalisingly out of reach. That will no doubt be the biggest focus in this match’s fallout.
The truth is, there were too many present issues, and you can almost track them all from front to back. Literally.
Arsenal started the game well, with some clever moves. PSG genuinely looked unsettled, and were making some dreadful decisions. It was just as well that Gianluigi Donnarumma also made some sensational saves.
For all the criticism the goalkeeper has received, he has been one of the decisive players in this Champions League so far. The two saves early on, especially from Martin Odegaard’s drive, felt crucial in terms of the match’s emotional shift.
Again, though, Arsenal had no one following in.
The season’s major subplot had a big say in the final narrative. Arsenal lacked that forward. At one point, Bukayo Saka put a fine cross into the box only to turn and throw his arms up in frustration because there was obviously no one there.
Mikel Merino can fill in, but that’s all it is ever going to be: filling in. And while some might point to the fact his goal return has been superior to previous attackers, that’s not what the modern position is about. Arteta sees Kai Havertz as crucial to his pressing game. The need to replicate that is one reason why they have so deliberated on a forward.
That indecision has been crucial.
It left them so short here, with Arsenal’s attritional toil in attack offering such a contrast to the exhilarating lightning of PSG. The game seemed to change with Khvicha Kvaratshkelia’s crackling shot against the post.
It didn’t help that, as Donnarumma kept the ball out at one end, David Raya gave it away at the other. On an evening when he had otherwise sent so many balls long, the goalkeeper inexplicably played a difficult pass to Declan Rice on 26 minutes. The midfielder was forced into a foul on Kvaratshkelia and, from the free kick, PSG were ahead.
That description doesn’t even begin to do the strike justice, which was quite some effort for Fabian Ruiz’s first-ever Champions League goal. The playmaker initally displayed quite an old-fashioned art in chesting the ball up for himself beautifully, before doing something that will always be eternally glorious in football. He leathered it into the far corner of the net on the volley. It wasn’t all force, mind, as Ruiz just waited that split-second to set himself up even better.
The fact it took a slight deflection off William Saliba’s chest was just another sign of how it was going for Arsenal. Aside from an opposition attacker hitting it when they wouldn’t, there were those little fortuitous bounces.
Something else went the wrong way at the worst moment. And from there, Arsenal tried to do too much with too little.
PSG began to target Jakub Kiwior while Myles Lewis-Skelly had his most difficult night in his short but exciting career so far.
PSG’s penalty for handball was still harsh, and Vitinha’s effort saved by Raya was almost apologetic. Achraf Hakimi quickly seemed to make it safe with another brilliant strike, only for Saka to immediately respond.
It briefly raised the hope that there could still be a stirring ending. That has been another theme of the season. It was, of course, to go unfulfilled, as PSG just had too much.
That is the wider story of the tie and why it has been such a contrast to the October match when Arsenal beat PSG easily.
On top of a series of absences and occasionally needless issues, Arteta has since lost two key players in Gabriel and Havertz. PSG have, meanwhile, added two from that October defeat, with Kvaratshkelia signed and Ousmane Dembele finally understanding the manager’s approach. It speaks to the manner the squad has immersed itself in the brilliant Luis Enrique’s ideology that they could still afford to bench Dembele here. PSG have so much talent now. Joao Neves, in particular, was sensational.
There is a properly serious team now, for the first time since the Qatar takeover in 2011.
Arteta is, meanwhile, facing his first serious questions in three years in charge of the Gunners.
Some of those are fair, and the most significant criticism is about whether or not he has too often compromised his approach with caution in the absence of key players. It did feel they couldn’t quite raise it to the same degree here, although some of that is due to the same players being used all the time for weeks. They were physically fatigued. There was also emotional fatigue. An occasional frenetic angst around the club hardly helps, which has been manifested in some of their season’s controversies.
Some of those questions, however, are excessive. It is certainly absurd to question Arteta’s future. The key is that Arteta has restored Arsenal to this level, to be a serious prospect themselves.
The issues are also visibly obvious. They won’t take too much to fix, and there are already plans for the summer. They just need to follow through.
As for this match, you can read the same as the rest of the season. Arsenal were good, with promising moves and ideas, but missed that forward, missed that key player and generally missed that something extra.
It means this is ultimately a very disappointing season, with a sense of going backwards. It doesn’t mean they don’t have a promising future.
The worst you can say is they weren’t even quite nearly men here.
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