- Did Arsenal cheat their way to the title in 2025/26? We look for the evidence.
- If we had to be defeated somewhere, this is the one I’d have chosen
By Christophe Jost
To all those who make fun of Arsenal or criticise, with all their gazillions and mega-duper-galctico stars, PSG needed more than a decade or two to win the competition, not to mention the billions spent on the team and the political involvement at the highest level of European football.
Looking back to last night, I believe that the 1-0 lead somehow led to Arsenal retreating into PL competition mode…. yet this is the UCL. You cannot just retreat after having scored early IMHO. And you could see in the second half that there were quite a few moments when Arsenal were dangerous as they went towards the PSG box.
But then, as is the case when climbing Everest, the oxygen one needs is not always available. Saka was below par…. no surprise, after the season he had. Same for Odegaard. But they were facing a PSG team that cruises through its domestic competition. And what no one comments upon is that the most dangerous players of PSG were substituted in the second half and that was no because of injury or a poor performance. It was because the Arsenal defence stifled them – they were exhausted, and new blood was needed.
And do also remember that these are players who are rotated heavily, take breaks, and don’t play each game in their championship. Yet they did not last a full 90 minutes against the Gunners. And in their own championship, they are not facing PGMOL either.
So criticise Saka all you want, but do the same for Dembele and Kvaratskhelia. Reading all the things written these past months, all I saw was the idea that these were superstars and they’d clobber Arsenal, and sen the Gunners home with a six pack at the end of the game.
And yet the only goal from play was from Havertz. PSG had only three shots on target, and watching the game you could see how the PSG attack just crashed on the Arsenal defence for most of the game.
Was the refereeing biased? Well, I can’t shake off the feeling that booking Saka and Mosquera made our right side more fragile, and this is where the penalty came from. Doue was not booked for kicking the ball away….nor was he (or some other player) booked for arn around Mosquera’s throat. But in the end, I believe that the penalty lottery could have gone the other way and that Arsenal were true to their PL season. But this is the UCL and only after PSG scored did we see Arsenal come alive.
There is this very interesting interview from Mr Arteta where he stresses the difference is in details.
We might recall that Roger Federer revealed that despite winning nearly 80% of the 1,526 singles matches he played in his career, he only won 54% of the total points.
That is coming from one of the greatest of all time and top 3 most popular tennis players.
So this first UCL final for Mr Arteta and this Gunners team, is the first step. They will learn which details were missing. If you ask me, with the level of games that we now get in four competitions and with internationals, Arsenal need a man in each position that is as good or better then any other team player.
Considering Jesus is leaving, the whole team can maintain its stability, and newcomers can now integrate into the team, instead of the team needing to adjut to the newcomers.
We all know that you cannot have a team made up of the greatest of all time (GOATs) players and rotation is necessary. I hear people clamouring for Martinelli or White to go…what utter BS.
Arsenal need to be able to play 50 or more games – and we are not talking about the internationals the players have to compete in – that is justs the Arsenal games.
So even if a player from this team is not considered ‘full UCL Final’ level, most have been contributing to this team and its victories, as well as the appearance in the final.
Apart from that, reading/hearing Wayne Rooney’s comments was refreshing, and I frankly did not expect him to defend Arsenal.
Now I’ll just turn on the TV later today and enjoy the trophy we won, the trophy of the most demanding and difficult football competitions in the world. I’ll pray for the World Cup to be a disaster and most players come home healthy. And somehow I’m convinced that come August, we’ll have added another layer of talent and strength to the team to face the next season.
Finally, Arsenal are PL champions for a year, so we should all enjoy that.
