Arsenal can still mount PSG comeback and the route is obvious | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta might have set the tone after the first leg at Arsenal, as he called for “something special”, but it was maybe Luis Enrique who properly set up the second leg. Despite his Paris Saint-Germain team’s impressive win on Tuesday night, he said “it’s just got started”.

While these may be words that seem general enough in European knock-outs, they touch on a deeper truth at this stage. The second legs of such ties, and especially when they're the semi-finals and so close to the club game’s greatest stage, can turn into whirlwinds.

The past few seasons have offered so many examples, that PSG know better than anyone. They’ve suffered some of the worst comebacks, but also withstood one in the last round against Aston Villa.

This competition is rarely like the old days. The football is much less tactically closed. Narrow victories in away first legs are no longer so decisive. One stat sums that up.

In the first 64 years of the Champions League, there were only six occasions when a team that won an away first leg subsequently went out. It has now happened five times since 2018-19. PSG have been involved in three of them. The end of the away goal rule obviously helps, but not totally. Three of these happened before that.

The most salient point is that, as thorough as a first leg can feel, it has often been the case that an overwhelming proportion of the decisive action can take place in the second leg.

These matches can take on a life of their own, rendering everything from the first almost irrelevant, as a sense of chaos escalates with every cascading moment. They can just explode, the tension from being so close to the final does funny things to players and teams.

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(Getty Images)

Luis Enrique himself pointed to Mikel Merino’s disallowed goal from the first leg, and how everything can change in an instant.

Arteta worked a lot on the psychology of such moments with his squad before the Real Madrid second leg, but it may prove more valuable now, from the other direction.

As has already been typical with this tie so far, though, there are two sides to that which are going to be tough to balance.

Arsenal need the game to get to a state where PSG are concerned about it getting out of control, or at least feeling the pressure. And yet Arsenal are going to have to try and get to that point of emotion by being as rational as possible, by taking the lessons from the first leg.

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(EPA)

They are going to have to weather at least one spell of intense PSG pressure, if not more. Luis Enrique was typically adamant that he wants his team to go and win the second leg. They are not going to let up.

Arteta did get intriguingly coy on one element he noticed in PSG’s brilliant opening spell in the first leg.

“We had especially one issue that we corrected after 15-20 minutes and we sustained that for the rest of the game, which I think turned the game around.”

When asked to elaborate on that, Arteta said “I don't want to say that”, before adding: “it's just something that is very specific but very important, especially the way we played. We corrected it and it's not easy to correct it constantly but we did it and we did it much better.”

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Mikel Arteta encourages his Arsenal team against Paris St Germain (PA Wire)

Arsenal did conspicuously stop Joao Neves supplying his most perceptive passes. They also have Thomas Partey back in that area.

If PSG do find another way around, as they have repeatedly displayed this season, that will offer other vulnerabilities.

There is a huge opening on the right side, for one. This is a direct consequence of how they attack. With Achraf Hakimi constantly pushing forward, there is space behind that Marquinhos struggles to cover.

Arsenal created three big chances through that route, and it follows Aston Villa doing similar. There is also the way that PSG can struggle in such situations. They did lose some of their control in the middle section of the Arsenal game, and Villa’s flurry threatened to subject them to another comeback in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.

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(REUTERS)

Unease was meanwhile most seen at set-pieces. This is an obvious potential advantage for Arsenal, which even Luis Enrique referenced.

One surprising issue in the first leg was that Arsenal’s deliveries were not to their usual standard. PSG still struggled with some moments. There is a height discrepancy and Gianluigi Donnarumma, despite showing his class this season, isn’t entirely comfortable coming for those set-pieces. Merino’s disallowed goal was a case in point.

As Luis Enrique summed up, “everything is up in the air”. And Arteta agreed.

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Arsenal could target the space behind Achraf Hakimi in the second leg (EPA)

“I think the margins were so small… but if it's significantly better, hopefully the result will be significantly different as well.”

Semi-final second legs can be very much like that. The whirlwind can suddenly whip up. Arsenal have to know how to navigate it.