PSG are favorites heading into Saturday’s Champions League final, but they are far from perfect. Here’s how Arsenal could gain the upper hand.
Arsenal are just one victory away from making history.
Win the Champions League final this weekend in Budapest and Mikel Arteta and his team will become legends. They would become the 25th different winners of the competition (including the European Cup) to have never won it before, and after winning the Premier League title last week, they would also be only the fourth English club to achieve the European double.
History awaits. It’s within Arsenal’s reach. They are only 90 minutes away.
The only problem is that it is Paris Saint-Germain who are blocking their way.
That means Arsenal must beat the European champions to win their crown, or hold out for 120 minutes and hope they can win on penalties. Either way, it’s a big ask.
PSG won last season’s final against Inter 5-0, after eliminating Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal, while this season they have beaten Monaco, Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern Munich in the round of 16.
They have an exceptional record against Premier League clubs, winning each of their last five matches against English opponents. And by eliminating Bayern, who they held at arm’s length in the second leg, they proved they could beat anyone. The German champions were, at the time, the best team in the world in the Opta Power rankings.
Top spot is now held by Arsenal, who moved into first place last week, and there is no doubt that they pose a formidable threat to PSG’s hopes of retaining their title.
But if Arsenal are to topple the reigning champions, they will need to have the game of their lives, and it’s natural to assume that any chance of success will start with their exceptional defense playing out of their skin to keep PSG’s stacked forward line quiet.
If Arsenal want to win, many would expect them to do so via a narrow scoreline and, likely, a clean sheet. After all, no team in Europe’s top five leagues has won more games in all competitions this season by a specific scoreline than Arsenal have won 1-0 (11).
However, as good as Arsenal’s defense is, stopping Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué And Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is a challenge that few opponents manage to overcome. PSG only needs one more goal in the Champions League to equal Barcelona’s record of 45 goals scored in a season (in 1999-00). Across all competitions, they have scored at least once in each of their last 27 games, scoring 62 times in total, a rate of 2.24 goals per game.
Most opponents in this race are nowhere near Arsenal’s level, but in recent weeks PSG have again beaten Liverpool to four in two matches, five then three ahead of Chelsea and five ahead of Bayern. This was probably the most fundamental starting point of Inter’s game plan in last season’s final: hold on as long as possible in defense, and look how that turned out.
This weekend, Arsenal will probably have to assume that PSG will score at some point, and so may have to go on the attack.
Perhaps that wouldn’t come as a huge surprise, considering how they approached their trip to the Etihad Stadium to face Manchester City last month. That day, Arsenal pressed from the start, applying more pressure on their opponents (474) than in any other Premier League game this season. They didn’t rest at any point, and it was Kai Havertz’s work pressing high up the pitch that forced Arsenal’s only goal of the game.
They may also be encouraged to apply pressure by the fact that PSG are prone to making mistakes of their own. The European champions have made the most errors leading to an opponent’s shot in the Champions League this season (26), and the most errors leading to a goal (six).
These numbers are affected by the fact that PSG have played more matches than most, but even per match they rank unfavorably: they are fourth in errors leading to a shot (1.63) and ninth in errors leading to a goal (0.38).
They surprisingly often struggle playing from the back given the technical ability they possess all over the pitch. Only two teams have lost possession within 40 meters of their own goal more times in the Champions League this season than PSG, who have done so 141 times, an average of 8.8 times per game.
That per-game rate is the worst (14th) among the 36 teams that will compete in the Champions League this season, but what really puts it into context is the fact that Bayern (4.0 per game), Arsenal (4.4), Liverpool (5.0) and Manchester City (5.4) – the teams PSG will consider themselves at least their peers – all rank among the top five teams in the competition in this regard.
More importantly, only two teams have conceded more goals from a high possession rate in the Champions League this season than PSG (four), and only six have a worse per-game rate than them (0.25, or one every four games). The list of these six teams – PSV, Spurs, Bodø/Glimt, Juventus, Chelsea, Copenhagen – is not exactly one that PSG will want to be in.
Spurs were one of the teams to score a goal after winning the ball high up the pitch against PSG, during their 5-3 defeat in Paris in November. That night they also scored from a corner, which is another route to goal that Arsenal will surely hope to exploit.
Arsenal’s expertise on set pieces needs no introduction, and while it’s not a huge weakness for PSG, they’re certainly not entirely safe on dead balls. Only five teams in Ligue 1 have conceded a higher proportion of goals from set pieces this season than PSG (20.7%), and they have faced no one with the threat of Arsenal from set plays.
But even though set pieces are rare and although Arsenal are very good at winning them, there’s no guarantee they’ll win many of them, and they may want to focus more energy attacking in the area where PSG look most vulnerable: on their right flank.
In Achraf Hakimi, PSG have one of the best attacking full-backs in world football, and he is encouraged to move forward at every opportunity. But that leaves room to exploit. Among the 36 teams present in the Champions League this season, only PSV and Chelsea saw their opponents create more chances on their right side than PSG (37.3%).
Spurs and Chelsea both scored goals against PSG after attacking that flank and putting a ball in front of goal – Archie Gray for Spurs and Pedro Neto for Chelsea – while Luis Díaz’s outstanding goal for Bayern at the Parc des Princes in the semi-final came after a blistering run behind the PSG defense that Hakimi made no effort to follow, leaving the Colombian one-on-one with a helpless Marquinhos.
Arsenal’s left winger is, along with right-back, probably the position where there is the most uncertainty ahead of Saturday’s game. Leandro Trossard has played there in most of Arsenal’s recent (significant) games, but there is an argument that the direct running and pace of someone like Gabriel Martinelli might be more useful in making the most of the space behind PSG’s right-back.
There is no denying that as good as Arsenal have been this season, they will face it this weekend. PSG are aiming for back-to-back Champions League crowns, while Arsenal have lost their last four major European finals.
They will need to be perfect from front to back to win their first Champions League title, but their chances should not be underestimated. PSG has its flaws, and Arsenal have more than enough in their ranks to take advantage of them.
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