Goals
Paris Saint-Germain:
Arsenal:
Competition: UEFA Champions League
Kickoff: 19:00+UTC
Venue: Parc des Princes - Paris France
Paris Saint-Germain form [old → recent]: ✅️➖️❌️✅️❌️
Arsenal form [old → recent]: ✅️✅️➖️❌️❌️
Head to head [recent → old]: (PSG-ARS): 1-0, 0-2, 1-5, 2-2, 1-1
Generated by lemmy-match-thread-bot
While I’m watching this game, I just keep thinking about all the players who Arsenal aren’t able to call on: Big Gabi, Concerned Gabi, Kai Havertz, Tomiyasu, Calafiori. It’s not just who’s available today. It’s who might have been available during the week so that other players could have a rest.
Everything in this game has been such fine margins. Maybe a slightly better or slightly more rested player would have been enough to make the difference.
OTOH, even without reinforcements, next season should go so much better as long as there isn’t another injury crisis. And “so much better” than finishing second (hopefully) and making the CL semifinals… That’s promising.
Can’t discount the fact that we really need more attacking options, which the board really failed to deliver on in the middle of an injury crisis. I’m not sure if this is because our director of football decided to up and leave in the middle of the season, and we are just waiting for the new guy to come in to implement their plans. Rotation has always been an issue, even if players were healthy…modern day managers including Mikel rely on really the same few players because of such a rigid system they play.
In theory, the number of available attackers shouldn’t have been a problem. There were 2 good options for LW (Martinelli and Trossard), 2 at CF (Havertz and Gabriel Jesus), 2 at RW (Saka and Sterling) and some youth trying to break into the team (Nwaneri). Maybe there should have been one additional body in the attacking third just in case. But one alternate for every position is normally a decent amount. CL squads are limited to 25 players, and 1 backup at every position brings you to 22 already.
The real issue is that we had a series of injury crises, and that Sterling turned out to be incredibly poor. I think the situation in August was reasonable. But, by January the injury crisis was in full swing and we’d discovered just how poor Sterling was. A signing in January might have made all the difference. Even if it had been a player who was clearly not first choice in any forward position, if it were a player who was good enough to close out a game, or good enough to play against a team facing relegation, it could have been a way to rest other players.
What sucks about this game is that PSG shows that there were options in January. Who would be in the final if Arsenal had signed Kvaratskhelia instead of PSG?
Yeah Krava was a great pick up by them. A gripe is Mikel really wants a really specific player. Not a specific type, a specific player…i mean you gotta work with that we can get sometimes.
I had such hopes for Sterling to turn himself around, but sigh…
Maybe the new Sporting Director will convince Arteta that he can widen his choices a bit. The absolute failure of Sterling should help. I’m sure it was partially Arteta’s choice, given that he’d worked with him at Man City, etc. If Arteta’s judgment of a player can be so far off that he didn’t realize Sterling was completely done, maybe he can put less confidence in his own judgment and trust the scouts and analysts to give him picks that he wouldn’t otherwise know about.
the worst part is how good we’ve looked, for no reward
Story of the season innit
SAKA NO YOU NEED TO GET IT THERE
And off goes the game. Transfers to look forward to now.
Silly season yay!
Fucking get outta here you absolute shite VAR tits
WHY IS DONNARUMMA AGH
ok we need to sub lewis-skelly off and put cala or tierney on
Yeah why aren’t we subbing fresh legs? That’s one thing I like to criticize about mikel is why not make changes. It has to be at the same minute mark every time
Getting that familiar sinking feeling like we’re just not going to score at all in this game. Banging on the door but just can’t break it down.
It just seems like Arsenal is outplaying PSG, but PSG is getting all the luck.
It sure is different having Merino as #9, Rice as left 8 and Partey at #6 though. Imagine if Arsenal had enough depth that a single suspension didn’t disrupt the entire team.
I’m so confused. WTF are we doing? Why are we trying to cross to no one? Why can’t Saka beat anyone and why doesn’t he even have a shot on target? It’s nowhere near good enough
Saka is repeatedly beating people, but PSG is sitting very deep so as soon as Saka beats one person there’s another one in his way.
Officially he has 1 key pass and 2 successful dribbles. Please tell me again how he’s repeatedly beating people.
How many crosses does he have?
2 accurate crosses
Yeah, Saka just sucks, right?
He just didn’t have a good game.
You should have watched the game against PSG instead of whatever you were watching. In the game that just aired, he almost scored an incredible goal, then scored one, then almost got another one after that.
Who is he beating? Maybe you’re watching a different game to me, because I see him failing to progress and ultimately passing backwards, sideways or crossing to absolutely no one hoping for the best.
He’s beating whoever’s in front of him. Are you sure you’re not watching a different sport entirely? The problem isn’t that he can’t beat his marker, it’s that he can’t beat the next player, and he’s often forced into a cross that nobody’s attacking.
He had two successful take ons in 90 minutes. If you want to argue that we shouldn’t use that as a metric to judge his performance, then that’s fine. But if I say something and the data backs me up, telling me I’m wrong because you’re upset is crazy.
You’d probably enjoy things more if you watched the game instead of just the stats.
You’re a really weird guy. Lemmy isn’t Reddit. We’re not trying to be angry dickheads here. It’s a community. People are allowed to disagree with you.
I’m not angry, just confused as to why you weren’t watching the game.
one must wonder how many goals we’d have scored with Ollie Watkins up there.
2-0 is the most dangerous lead tbf right guys, applies to aggregate also
RICE YOU LEGEND. GOOD TACKLE.
Myles is not ready for this man.
no please…
Myles gotta work on those crosses lol
