Arsenal still aren’t ‘100%’ the best in Europe but Arteta’s 2025 nonsense could come true in 2026 if one Gunners star pulls their finger out.
“We were very close, much closer than the result showed, but unfortunately we are out,” Arteta said as defeat in the second leg of their semi-final against PSG saw them lose 3-1 on aggregate last season.
“I am very proud of the players, 100% I don’t think there’s been a better team [than Arsenal] in the competition from what I have seen, but we are out.”
Some people (all of them Arsenal fans) will have agreed, but the vast majority baulked at his claim of superiority after a game which to the neutral appeared to mainly feature PSG passing and running through Arsenal and Thomas Partey hoying the ball into the box from the touchline.
He didn’t claim Arsenal were the most attractive team to watch in the competition, which would have been too much even for the most absurdly blinkered and conceited of managers, but there is absolutely no doubt that PSG were the best team in last season’s Champions League even with differences in style considered, and by some distance.
Declan Rice spoke to the indoctrination of the Arsenal players, which grants Arteta the license to employ RAF pilots and take further harebrained steps to make one per cent improvements, by then claiming in defence of another trophyless campaign that “we’ve done the whole season without five or six of our best players”. Takehiro Tomiyasu’s injury hit them all hard.
But after a weekend which saw Arsenal leap above Liverpool as Premier League title favourites, while drooling over a bench featuring Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze, Cristhian Mosquera and Jurrien Timber – and not featuring either Kai Havertz or Piero Hincapié who will return from injury to further bolster Arteta’s ludicrous options – on the back of six changes from their dramatic victory over Newcastle, for the first 30 minutes of this game we genuinely wondered whether we were watching the best team in Europe.
Martin Odegaard looked as good as he’s ever done, drifting past challenges, picking and weighting passes perfectly and snapping into tackles to win the ball back. He allowed the chance to be the Viktor Gyokeres to be the Viktor Gyokeres the Arsenal fans thought and hoped they were signing through his first thought being to look for the striker barrelling in behind the Olympiacos defence. And did he ever barrel for the first goal.
The pair of defenders who attempted to squeeze him out having had a five-yard head start were rag-dolled aside by Gyokeres, whose finish was half stopped by goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis before Gabriel Martinelli knocked the ball in off the post. It was the most Gyokeres that Gyokeres has looked in an Arsenal shirt.
But the finish still wasn’t quite right, as was the case in two other instances in the first half where the £55m man did everything right up to the crucial moment. After quite possibly the pass of the season from Odegaard – curled impossibly around the Olympiacos defence from a deep position – Gyokeres blazed high and wide when Martinelli was free in the middle. Having later cut in on his right foot in the box he again smashed his shot over the bar.
He’s less a striker with ice in his veins right now, more one with steam spewing from every orifice, such is the panic which appears to overcome him when faced with an opportunity. Just calm down, mate.
Leandro Trossard was another culprit in spurning presentable opportunities for the Gunners, who should have been clear of Olympiacos by half-time, but by the final whistle were reflecting on a game in which the visitors could quite easily have bloodied their noses.
Olympiacos gave at least as good as they got in the second half, and Arteta’s changes hampered the Arsenal flow rather than aiding them in their bid to rediscover the quality and intensity they showed before the break.
Without Bukayo Saka’s late goal to double Arsenal’s lead, they would have had David Raya to thank for this victory. His truly remarkable save to deny Daniel Podence allows an easy comparison with Gianluigi Donnarumma, whom Arteta hailed as the difference between his side and PSG in May, thanks to a string of absurd stops to thwart the Gunners in that semi-final.
“This competition is about the boxes and in both boxes are the strikers and the goalkeepers and theirs was the best in both games,” Arteta said.
And while Raya’s consistent excellence leaves no doubt as to whether he can produce in those key knockout games for Arsenal, the concern after this game – and others this season – will be their quality in the other box, where Gyokeres again failed to convince.
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