Gunners caught napping as PSG strike early for victory

The demand from Mikel Arteta is now obvious, but the manner Arsenal get there is not.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

He said his team need “something special” after this 1-0 home defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. There was then the same caveat as after Real Madrid. “It’s only half-time.” Luis Enrique went further, insisting this tie “has only started”.

That should make it even less of a surprise that both managers described this as a game “of different phases”.

There are duly a few ways to look at it, beyond the fact PSG have yet another lead against an English side. The night could have been so much worse for Arsenal, as they had a few issues exposed. They similarly know they can be better. Arsenal showed there are weaknesses to be exploited in the French side, but also so many strengths to try and stop.

It was notable that Arteta made such a point of saying Arsenal solved one “very specific” issue from the first 20 minutes with how his team moved the ball. That may still mean the tie ends up being decided by two very different individual moments at either end of this first leg.

There was obviously Ousmane Dembele’s superb goal after just three minutes; that remains the difference. There was then PSG’s flurry of late chances, and particularly Goncalo Ramos’s strike off the bar. It maybe says much about the night that Arsenal anxiously watched some of those efforts go astray, in the hope that a 1-0 defeat still gives them a significant chance in Paris. That could be fateful. Arteta may well lean on that.

In between, there was how performances ebbed and flowed. PSG had significant periods when they looked like the best team in Europe, and a level above.