Champions League Final 2026 | Sat 30th May | Paris Saint-Germain v Arsenal

bridgeno1 said:
If we'd gone toe to toe we'd have been ripped apart.
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If that was the case you need to sack your recruitment team.

Youre not going to want an open game against PSG, but your squad yesterday cost about £700m in transfer fees and should be capable of more than 24% possession against anyone.

Saying that you had no choice is a cop out, you were gutless I'm afraid and that was a choice, not a neccesity.
 
coolcity said:
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta speaking in his post-match press conference:

"I watched all the penalties in the Champions League this season during the last 72 hours to understand what is a penalty and what's not, and that can easily be a penalty."

Sums up their mentality. Why would you spend the last 72 hours going through penalties unless you (a) intended to attempt to win penalties during the match or (b) try to scramble through 120 minutes to reach a penalty shootout?
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Maybe he should be asked to watch all pens not given in the PL last season and explain what is and isnt a pen.
 
Davie82 said:
Are people saying Arsenal controlled the game?

For the first hour or so PSG played all the football while Arsenal made it difficult for them. I acknowledge it became more end to end after that. Was tired and fell asleep at half time in extra time and only woke during penalties, so cannot comment on the second period of extra time there.

There seems to be this thing in football where if a team is playing all the football, but struggling to break down a low block, the low block team is claimed to 'control the game' just by breaking into space and scoring. I seen it too when rags went 2-0 up at the swamp v Liverpool even though the scousers were trying to play the football.

I think if you rely on sitting back and containing and launching transitions, you cannot really claim to 'control the game'. Obviously some possession can be sterile, as some of PSG's was, but that's still better than not having the ball at all. Like, fair play if you win while sitting back, but you can hardly claim you dominated the game or were the superior team.

That's why I have always liked watching Man City, Barca and Bayern (the latter against good teams rather than weaker teams in Bundesliga). They respect the ball, try to play football, play nice patterns with passes, have dribblers etc. These type of teams are what make football the beautiful game.
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You confirm something I have suspected for a while now that watching Arsenal will put you to sleep.
 
Ric said:
They’re still twatting on about the non-penalty. Thank fuck TNT don’t have the CL rights after this game.
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I thought next season was TNT's last and then from 27/28 it moves to Paramount+

BT Sport/TNT Sport added the new Conference League to its rights five years ago, but will lose all three competitions from the 2027-28 season, having been outbid by Paramount for the Champions League and by Sky Sports for the other two in Uefa’s media rights auction last year.’
 
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It feels we are slowly shifting back into the early 2010s era where the top PL teams will struggle to hold onto their players to Real/Barca/PSG/Bayern. PL as a league is the best, but lack the superstar match winners at the top.

City was the only real team who had the stars in the PL.
 
bridgeno1 said:
We were playing PSG and for all their possession it wasn't like they had a ton of chances. If we'd gone toe to toe we'd have been ripped apart. We didn't lose the match (obviously apart from pens which is a lottery) so if it had gone the other way and footballers paid £200k+ a week actually manage to hit the fucking target from 12 yards then the dastardly plan might have worked.

I'd imagine heavy investment in the summer plus we are guaranteed CWC qualification unless 2 different PL sides win the CL in the next couple of years and neither of them is Arsenal or City (the 2 PL sides with the highest English coefficients).
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Mate, come on. For 120 minutes you were completely outplayed. It was one of the most timid, passive performances ever produced in a major final. From the 45th minute onwards, your xG was 0.01, offering almost nothing as an attacking threat.
It genuinely felt like watching a lower league side hanging on for dear life rather than a team competing for the biggest prize in club football. The football was negative, uninspiring, and at times it was very painful to watch. Not a single attempt to impose yourselves on the game, just survival. You're the Champions of England, show it.

In the end, football got the result it deserved. The team that wanted to play, attack and entertain won.
Congratulations to PSG. Football won last night.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Never picked up as much an anti-English vibe for a CL final as I did yesterday for this one based on what I saw at my local boozer.

They have definitely become more unpopular in recent seasons. I think their online personas being the principal cause.

I couldn’t in all good conscience say they haven’t had a great season, because winning the league makes it automatically so, but there is no way this team has earned the right to call itself great, and last night underlined that.
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I also watched in my local German Cruiser, it’s mainly a Blue pub but there were rags in last night, the place erupted when PSG got the equaliser and when the Tarquin’s missed the last penalty, it was a brilliant atmosphere, lots of smiles and humour.

Thank you PSG, bet Neymar and Mbappe weren’t cheering them on, pair of wankers going has led Enrique to build a “team” in Paris, those two wankers were holding them back. Hopefully Mbappe continues to be disruptive at the Spanish rags along with Bellend and Vinicius.

Great night for most English football fans, and a final thought, McCoist, Slippy, Keown and Jack Wheelchair can fuck off as well, have any TV pundits ever praised us in Europe like they did the Tarquin’s last night?
 
Ho Chi Man City said:
I also watched in my local German Cruiser, it’s mainly a Blue pub but there were rags in last night, the place erupted when PSG got the equaliser and when the Tarquin’s missed the last penalty, it was a brilliant atmosphere, lots of smiles and humour.
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I was watching it with a group of lads in their early 20s as I know two of them quite well (who are brothers). Group were all Liverpool and Villa fans. All went mental when Gabriel missed.

I’d actually warned one of them as Gabriel walked up that this seemed too good to be true and to not expect the **** to miss!
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Never picked up as much an anti-English vibe for a CL final as I did yesterday for this one based on what I saw at my local boozer.
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Yep I think that's true, certainly among supporters (other than their own), though the media remained onside, stupidly so during commentary, very different to media view leading to any City games where they actively take the opposition angle and pen stuff which they hope will lead fan narrative against us, which it does.
 
Numerous ridiculous comments in this thread.

For starters, PSG are the best club in world football at present, but best club ever - no. The best club ever is debatable but for me was Barca 2010-11.

Next, the claim that we are very close now with our present squad to PSG and would be favorites to beat them - total nonsense. We are good going forward but struggle on defense. We give opponents numerous chances to score against us. PSG would rip us apart. That said, we do seem more capable than PSG against a low block defense - Doku, in particular, can beat 2 defenders at once, creating numerous goal scoring opportunities. By way of contrast, PSG struggled to break down Arsenal's low block, creating very little.

A big factor in the final was Arsenal's early, lucky goal. Once Havertz scored, Arsenal parked the bus making it extremely difficult to score against them.

For me, the best sides in world football right now, are:
1) PSG
2) Bayern
3) Barca
4) Arsenal

We are still rebuilding and have a bit of catching up to do. On top of this we have a new manager and many stalwarts (Silva, Stones, etc.) are leaving. I think we'll be better next season, probably favorites to win the league.
 
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