Arsenal finally proved they can compete with the Big Boys in Europe
Last night the one and only Arsenal put on a show of strength and progress, hinting they’re ready to tackle the biggest clubs in the Champions League, once again!
Mikel Arteta’s soldiers tackled French side Paris Saint-Germain with masterful ease in the end putting them to bed 2-0, whilst the lights were shining brighter than ever in North London.
After 20 minutes Kai Havertz slotted The Gunners into a firm lead with a heroic header of his following a superb ball from Leandro Trossard, who’s arguably been one of Arsenals best players so far this season, outshining the currently injured Martin Odegaard in the middle of the park who’s yet to return.
Ten minutes before the break, Arsenal wrapped up the all important victory scoring from a free-kick from outside the box, causing us Gooners in the crowd to go wild.
Arsenal sent a statement to not only the rest of Europe last night that we are ready again to compete for the most prestigious pieces of club silverware, but to the World!
In the post match conference Mikel Arteta spoke about Arsenal’s control of the game:”to be so dominant to score the two goals and then we wanted that different second half probably and continued to be that dominant.”
The Spaniard also mentioned the impressive form of Havertz: “so powerful, so intelligent the way he occupies the spaces the way he puts everything together, his work ethic, and now he’s around the box and you have the feeling that he’s going to score a goal. The goal was superb.”
PSG have been one of the most respected teams in Europe in recent years reaching the Champions League final in 2020, losing narrowly 1-0 to German Giants Bayern Munich.
Since then they have reached the semi-finals of the competition twice. The last time Arsenal reached the semi-finals of the Champions League was almost 20 years ago, when Manchester United destroyed our hopes of a second final in three years in 2009.
The Paris side have completely dominated their own domestic league in the past 12 seasons, clinching Ligue 1 ten times in that time.
They are currently tied level on points (16) at the top of the division with second place Monaco and are potentially on course for a Ligue 1 quadruple of titles.
The days of beating the top teams in Europe during the early years of the 21st century have vanished from that of the memories of young Gooners. It’s hard to believe now that we were the first English side to win at the Bernabeu, beating Real Madrid 1-0 in 2006 during the round of 16. On top of that slaughtering Inter Milan 5-1 at the most adored San Siro in 2003, and lets’ not forget reaching the 2006 Champions League final which we lost 2-1 to Barcelona despite leading.
Hopefully those European nights of glory are returning after dismantling PSG with a fresh wave of confidence and prosperity!
Liam Harding
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
We used to play in the Champions League before – do you remember ?
We do beat (big) teams in our home, be it Highbury or Emirates – do you remember ?
We’ve beaten this PSG before under Wenger, they didn’t even beat us in their own home – do you remember ?
This win proves nothing
We’ve beaten Juve, Inter, Napoli, Barca, Real…
We do beat big teams in our home in Champions League
It didn’t mean we were ready to compete with the Elite then – it doesn’t now
Cos we still couldn’t beat Atalanta in their home & that will probably be the case with other big/tough teams too (Inter at San Siro coming soon)
Yes strange view. We are currently 8th on the table and will be further down after today’s games.
While we were struggling to beat Atlanta, Bayern was beating someone by 9 goals.
Atalanta fixture was sandwiched in between two tough away fixtures during a period we were missing key midfield players. Atalanta are no pushovers themselves going by their achievements over the past few months,beating Liverpool in the process. The notion that we could just go to their stadium with a depleted squad and streamroll them is unrealistic and doesn’t prove anything.
To be the champion you have to win even when you are missing key players or have successive tough fixtures.
It’s what separate the normal from the elites.
I don’t think the author necessarily meant we are ready to win it. The point is we are ready to compete. I too back us to compete against any side in Europe now. That doesn’t always translate to winning it though. Man City were very competitive in it for years before finally winning it.
By the way it’s not always the best teams that win the Champions League. Lots of factors come into play. The Chelsea side that won it in 2012 were only third in the Epl and the Chelsea side that won it in 2021 when Havertz scored the winning goal finished 4th in the Epl. They were hardly elite in both seasons,but they beat Bayern Munich and Man City,two teams that on paper,were much better.
HH
agree but you also need not to lose at all cost
we have seen that in recent weeks and years gone by we would have still played expansive football and been exposed.
the last few games we have ensured we make sure what we have is what we hold and ensure we stay compact.
still a long way to go and hopefully we will get even better and stronger as the season progresses so looking good for now.
onwards and upwards
It’s a shame we call missing one player – a depleted squad
Any other injured player wasn’t going to be in the starting 11
So Odegaard was the only starter we missed & we say “depleted”
Meanwhile some teams were playing the whole of last season with 60% of their first team players perpetually injured
Mind you, Scamacca was also out for Atalanta and some other players.
Please let’s stop getting over ourselves
We were lucky to not lose to Atalanta – that shows we’re not there yet
@Babasola, football is dynamic than you think. A player could be a reason why a team win or lose. It is very true a team can be depleted because of a player. Messi carried Bacca for a long time. Saliba missed 11 matches two seasons ago, can you see the difference last season he played all through? The conversation would have been different if we lost to PSG yesterday analyst and Pundits will be critical of Arsenal.
Our Boys did very well against a PSG that parades 40% of France national team players and they have more UCL experience than Arsenal. And we weren’t lucky against Atlanta considering it was an away game. Our keeper did his job by saving a penalty pls check the attacking stats of the game. Football is more than having possession that’s why Wenger lfailed in his latter days.. I remain a Yoruba following Arsenal for 25years
The players who started that game had given a lot in the North London Derby, travelled to Italy and must have had the match at Etihad playing at the back of their minds as well.These guys are human after all.
The bench matters a lot because at 0-0, someone can come off the bench and make a difference. We had SIX teenagers on the bench against Atalanta! Merino,Odegaard,Tomi,Zinchenko were all missing and this is the kind of game fresh legs could have made a difference.
While I agree that we should not get ahead of ourselves because of the PSG match,I also push back on the notion that the Atalanta match proves anything. If the PSG match doesn’t prove anything then the Atalanta match doesn’t prove anything either. We should all chill and wait until the team has played all the group matches then we’ll have a better picture of where we are. Any judgement/assessment at this stage is just premature.
I agree. I think we’re getting a little carried away with yesterday’s performance (relief at the win, probably).
Arsenal was good overall, but the quality of the opposition is a (the) determining factor and, frankly, PSG wasn’t that good on the night.
As I said in another post, PSG reminded me of Wenger’s later Arsenal teams – lots of passing and possession, but little “cutting edge”. Just like those Wenger teams, they didn’t look like getting any result because of it.
To win the CL you need to be consistently good (and probably a little lucky on occasion) home and away against the best because you’ll surely meet them at some stage. That’s when we’ll see how Arsenal really performs – hopefully, very well, but I don’t think we can/should use yesterday’s PSG as much of an indicator.
Man City was drawing inter at hom too.pls football is not mathematics, you can win today and loose tomorrow.
If we are among the elites after our win yesterday what will we be if we lose tomorrow?
Heros to zeros?
arsenal pray well yesterday, no doubt about it, kudos to our boys,
All the dept of the pitch were ok.
Well done guys. We should prepare well in the knock out stages. We should equally not carried away based on the level of P S G yesterday night. More taught matches are coming. Marten ell I have to improve in scoring goal. Jesus have to come back on his best. Arteta should introduce nwaneri , too in some matches like this, kiwor defending was superb. If we maintain this momentum by may next year we should crown champion.
We should be cautious. Still a long way to go. We played well but PSG did not put up the expected resistance. We should not underate Inter, and we shouldn’t go there to play for a draw. We must win. Still need a proper No. 9. Hope Timber is fine. That guy is good.
Let’s keep it in perspective, it was a very young PSG team. That said, a very calm and professional performance by the lads.
I couldn’t see game but read somewhere that PSG hit the post twice, so I don’t see where the so dominant claim fits, especially against a team in serious transition. It was a moral boosting win against a big name club, which hasn’t really done very well in Europe considering what they’ve spent. That’s more than enough.
Joe ..Arteta said it, not me!
Point taken.