I’ve watched it so many times now. For me Madueke is not pulling Mendes arm, if you focus on the arms alone, Madueke hols the arm around but there isn’t a pulling of it. The arm hook is a reaction to Mendes trying to get his own arm across because he knows he’s been beaten. Madueke does not pull the arm of Mendes, he doesn’t pull him down on top of him, the arms are linked but the far far far bigger contact is the clumsy bundling over.
If it was given on the pitch there is now way it is over turned. And if it was given pundits would say Mendes is clumsy, wrong side etc and would justify the call

A lot of talk about upgrading our attack but the starkest contrast today was more the ability to control the ball in midfield. If we want to take the next step in this teams development there has to be a serious uptick in the technical quality across the board

I thought the decision to not let us have that corner at the end of the half summed up the ref. He was determined to make the game a spectacle, or at least not let anything ruin it. He gave the corner and said there was enough time to take it, of course Saka doesn’t rush but he’s hardly slowing down drastically, he’s only just reached the corner when the ref says it’s half time.

It was clear all through that game that he wanted to punish anything from us that he deemed gamesmanship, and that meant he was also far too lenient on any fouls that should have gone for us.

Arteta: "We start to make some very important decisions if we want to reach another level. And we're going to have to show that ambition. We are more than capable of doing it, but it's going to demand us to be very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart."



Seems a message to the kroenke’s

I haven’t seen everything but when we won the league there didn’t appear to be any/many congregations messages from the other prem clubs official social media channels. When we lost last night there were quite a few official channels mocking us. I’m pretty certain Arsenal’s channels have congratulated the champions.

It’s a small thing and I’m not bothered about it just more an observation of the dangerous direction social media is taking people. People are becoming more invested in football, are having more arguments online and I think it will lead to dangerous repercussions. Those high profile people who make a living from trolling others, from laughing in their face when that team/person is at their lowest may just tip a few people over the edge with this.

This season I’ve noticed it more than ever because so much hate has come our way. You get Gabby Agbonlahor prancing around in a PSG shirt mocking Arsenal, hating Arsenal - has this EVER been done for any other English side in Europe or a European final? Particularly by so many who are not traditional rivals with Arsenal. Would it be so much of a surprise to see someone take a proper pop at these high profile trolls if this continues? They wouldn’t dare try it with some continental teams who have proper nutcase ultra fans

But for one mistake on the penalty I felt we defended PSG comfortably. They only created 0.7xG from open play in 120 minutes - of course we created less but with the amount of the ball they had it really showed that they had no answer. Their best chances came late in extra time when we’d pushed forward and they had pace to run from the half way line.

We’ll receive a lot of criticism and glee because we defended for long periods but to those people I’d ask them how exactly they would set up a team to beat this PSG side? They marvelled over Bayern who got ruthlessly beaten.

Just as with Man City, people don’t want to have the conversation about one of the biggest cheating scandals and sportswashing projects in sport. We are the target of ridicule and anger because we play by the rules and try to compete against cheats. Every single thing tilts the scales in the advantage of PSG and they are lauded for it. Football stinks

Arteta said Calafiori had a little niggle in training in the week so we didn’t risk him.
Assuming Hincapie move is made permanent and MLS future is properly in midfield then do we actually need another LB? Not the primary problem but Calafiori’s constant niggles are worrying.

If we want a big summer of improvements then there will need to be a degree of risk in terms of moving players on.

The two most obvious positions are elite left winger and back up RB (we assume Ben White is off)

After that we may want a striker but unless the Jesus replacement is a young player then you’re looking at moving on one of Havertz or Gyökeres.

I think we need something more in central midfield. If we’re being super critical and want to be the very best then we don’t have the very best 6 or 10 positions yet to compliment Rice. But look how stacked we are in CM
MLS, Nørgaard, Zubimendi, Rice, Merino, Eze, Ødegaard, Nwaneri. That’s 8 players for 3 positions, we only really used 5/6 of those players all season, we don’t need 8.

Interesting that if everyone was fully fit then for the biggest game in our history Arteta wouldn’t have started any of our 7 summer signings.
I think Timber and Calafiori start if fully fit.

So you have Hincapie, Mosquera, Nørgaard, Zubimendi, Eze, Madueke, Gyökeres all benched for the major final. Of course they weren’t all signed with the idea of being first 11 players. Those signings added ridiculous depth and raise the floor of the team and that tells in a league campaign but we have to now add star quality to the starting 11

Ornstein on Arsenal transfers:

"And the left-sided attack is a big priority for them...

"They want a 6/8 midfielder. They want to strengthen at RB as well...

You could see that outlay in the market from last summer, repeated or even exceeded."

We need another midfield player who can connect dots and play braver forward passes. As you rightly say

Feels to me that zubimendi, Nørgaard, Merino & Ethan should potentially be sacrificed to finance something of a rebuild. Havertz possibly but I like Kai and he’s a useful player. I think to bridge that quality gap shown last night difficult decisions will need to be made on popular figures.

Yep - on reflection I think the PSG penalty and the Madueke call are both clear penalties

Mendes gets wrong side - makes contact with back of Madueke leg and then they become entwined, it's nonsense to claim that Madueke pulls him over as Mendes has already fouled him and is in process of bundling him over from behind as this happens

PSG created very little - their only decent chance was Vitinha effort just over - other than the penalty Raya had everything else under control

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateus_Fe ... footballer)

he fits the kind of profile I think we need - need someone other than Rice with power and athleticism who can get from box to box

Going first in the shoot out is such a huge advantage particularly when it comes down to sudden death situations. Shooting to win the match (92% success) vs shooting to not lose the match (62%) is a significant enough difference that the tables should be evened to not be so swayed by the toss of a coin.
They tried the ABBAABBAAB order and ditched it for some reason.

I like him, the question is whether he can really perform at the level we need - there aren’t many players who can. But then who would have thought Vitinha would get where he has when he was playing for Wolves.

It's classless and embarrassing. Chelsea's tweet just shows what a tin pot classless club they are. Arteta and Arsenal have won and lost with dignity, some of those in the media have showed themselves up as nothing more than hateful trolls.

being in front of your own fans is huge advantage too.....

Got to be proud overall - we were undefeated in the CL within normal time

unbelievable record

I think there is something at full back where we could improve as well. If you take a bit of reference from Klopp’s great Liverpool team they had an exceptional front 3 and an absolute workhorse but unspectacular midfield 3, those 3 in midfield hardly got any goals or assists and weren’t massively creative- the ran and ran, the two full backs however were brilliantly attacking and creative.
Our central midfield feels like it lacks creativity and goals but is superb off the ball, closing spaces and pressing. Rice will be a fixture in our midfield for ages and for all his brilliance he isn’t a creative force or a passing metronome so you have to compensate. Are Ødegaard and Eze the answer creativity? (Or Nwaneri?) or do we need to get more technical quality from our full backs? Or do we need elite individual attackers who do it all on their own?
Maybe a bit of everything. Plenty to ponder for the summer.

It’s also worth considering that maybe we don’t need to change the team that drastically and can in fact improve by turning up the attacking dial a bit. Let Saka stay higher and instruct the CM to cover at RB on dangerous wingers for example

To be a bit negative, next year is going to be very very tough

Defending the title is notoriously hard - with the World Cup going on til mid July and a lot of players already carrying long term injuries, a massive task is going to be getting certain players rested and fully fresh

Saka has not been fully fit all season - he need a proper break, ideally I'd give him a good 4 weeks off after the World Cup and bring him back in gently

Timber needs care as he's played a lot of minutes

Rice will burn out soon if we don't rotate him better, Zubimendi has already burnt out

It’s strange how much stock teams and players place in their hatred of Arsenal. I’ve seen so many posts immediately after the game of teams and individual players putting pictures up with their own champions league. Or trolling Arsenal players. It’s mad.

Can you ever imagine Arsenal’s official channel doing the same? My long term prediction is if it continues in such a high profile way then someone is going to go too far and snap and it will spill over from just words over the internet.

Even that City fan fella who had the bottle, he’s been online complaining about his own mental health because Arsenal fans are giving him pelters. If you put yourself up there to be shot at…. Give it but can’t take it etc etc

I saw Stan Collymore (I know I know) on Twitter just outright type ‘cry more you c*nt’ to a random Arsenal fan. Collymore also posts himself an advocate for mental health on his profile. How and why is Collymore so angry against us to feel the need to do that?

The whole season has just been bizarre in this regard

100%, I called earlier in the season that we should have given Zubimendi a 2-3 week break at Xmas as that’s what he is used to.

Lots of teams have players at the World Cup so we’re not alone. We need a huge squad again next year and Arteta needs to be willing to rotate more.

If we want to tackle the most difficult problem then I think it’s Ødegaard. He has lost nearly all his goal threat and lacks physicality and athleticism. His injuries haven’t helped but if we’re being honest there is a clear upgrade that can happen at the tip of our attacking midfield.
Do you give the keys to Eze - who feels up and down or trust Nwaneri (needs a lot of off the ball work) or go and get Rogers and play him there??!

What makes it even odder is that it’s not like we got battered is it.

Talkspite having a ball, spurs players give it the big un (DJ Spence ffs) and even the official Chelsea account,

Classless arseholes that need to be ignored.

I think you need someone new. All the players you mentioned including rogers are good with many qualities but it just feels to me you need a different profile like Fabregas whose combination play can move us up the pitch and create chances in the final third and score goals. We are compact and solid. Just missing something

The irony is that hate will only eat you up from the inside

As Rich points to that City fan and Stan the 'man' - hate is very self destructive

I think next year will be very tough. Trying to retain a title is not easy and I haven’t see us do it in my lifetime.

This season will have taken a big toll on certain players and if we can bring in fresh legs to rejuvenate the squad a bit and ease the pressure we can still have a good campaign but saka has been indifferent this year and others may be next.

If we can sign a few players who are likely to come in a bit fresh rather than having difficult World Cup and league campaigns that might be useful. Thinking along the lines of players like kroupi who could come in young and eager to bring energy.

When City finally won the CL they won against a ok but not excellent Inter.
When Liverpool won it they won it against Spurs, and lost two finals v Real Madrid.
Man U lost 2 finals to prime Barcelona

We’ve lost v prime Barca and prime PSG.

That bit of luck matters, timing matters. We’ve seen that in the league. Keep putting yourself in the position to win and you will win.
We did get some luck in the KO draws, we could have had harder teams but we deserved the draw based on our 8/8 group stage win

Keep going, keep putting ourselves in these finals and these positions and we will win.

2006 v Barca felt like the end of a great era, this does not feel like that, this is the start.

Celebrate this league title hard today, remind the haters who the best team is by some distance this season

totally agree mate - definitely would like 3 younger players in CF, CM an RB - then I think left sided inside forward is where the big money goes in someone with a decent degree of PL experience

I think there should be a tweak to var whereby there is a way the var can advise the referee re looks at a decision but isn’t giving a recommendation - he’s allowing the ref to have the final say but isn’t giving effectively saying this decision is 50/50 you would benefit from another look to make sure you’re certain of your decision

I think there should be a tweak to var whereby there is a way the var can advise the referee re looks at a decision but isn’t giving a recommendation - he’s allowing the ref to have the final say but isn’t giving effectively saying this decision is 50/50 you would benefit from another look to make sure you’re certain of your decision

Left wing is a big priority. I wouldn’t mind two new midfielders with different profiles than we have. An equivalent or a Vitinha - a tempo setter, progressive passing, press resistant shuttler.

Kroupi jnr
Rogers
Barcola
Tonali
Livramento

That’s the profiles we’ve been most linked to (but that lot would cost £350m probably!)

You have to hand it to the frenchies they love a good riot don’t they

Imagine if that happened after we won in London. Would be discussed at PMQs and a 900 point deduction

yes - at the end of the day it's a cup and there's a lot of luck involved in timing and the draw

these Arsenal sides that have lost the final are way way better than many sides which have won it

United beating Bayern sticks out as a really average United side which was very lucky throughout the competition

Kroupi and Rogers do look quality and right profile - would be a lot of cash as you say though

Arteta seemed to be hinting at some tough choices ahead, I think moving some of our big names on may well be something they are considering - those in that 27+ age category and who we can get decent fee for............

Players in this category

Havertz
Ødegaard
Merino

Would all command 35m + fees

Maybe Ethan & martinelli.

Would be a shock but he’s talking about raising the level again and that feels to me another Declan Rice type acquisition rather a collective squad strengthening which was last summer.

Once again in a huge game we’ve played a team at full strength. We almost got there but the one area we weren’t was exposed in 1 moment. Bad luck to have both RB out injured. Story of the season with cluster injuries.
Last year PSG were at full strength as well, virtually the same team as last night. They can keep everyone fresh because they win the league with the second string. We played 63 games flat out, PSG’s elite players played maybe half that. They didn’t necessarily look fitter or stronger but there were no injuries or niggles.

Yep - tough choices

It very much depends on who is available and willing to come to us

Jesus and White need to move on for sure

If you could get top notch replacements then moving on Trossard/Martinelli/Ødegaard/Havertz/Merino is something Arteta will be considering

Got to be mindful we have a big wage bill and given certain players' ages/injury records - if you can a decent fee it would be worth moving them on for sure

Havertz, Jesus and Ødegaard are 3 out of our 4 top earners for example and comprise over 20% of our total wage bill!!!!

https://www.capology.com/club/arsenal/salaries/