Ousmane Dembele and Mikel Arteta (Photo by Alex Grimm, Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
PSG’s 5-4 win over Bayern Munich on Tuesday night was undoubtedly one of the games of the season in terms of sheer end-to-end entertainment.
But does it, as so much of social media would have you think, spell bad news for Arsenal in the Champions League? I’m not so convinced.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolute joy watching elite attacking players expressing themselves like this – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Desire Doue at one end, and Michael Olise and Luis Diaz at the other is as good as anything in world football right now.
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But those rushing to condemn the Premier League, and particularly Arsenal, for moving away from this kind of football to a more tactical and defensive-minded game that has dominated in England this season, would do well not to overlook some important factors at play here.
Why PSG and Bayern look so much better than Premier League sides
Free-flowing attacking football is a luxury Arsenal and other Premier League teams can’t afford. Even Manchester City haven’t really played like their old selves for much of this season, and found Championship side Southampton in the FA Cup semi-final a tougher opponent than PSG or Bayern face in most of their domestic matches.
Bayern have already won the Bundesliga, as they do most seasons without any opposition, while PSG will probably come out on top again in Ligue 1 this term, as you’d expect for two clubs whose wage bills dwarf what their so-called competition in these leagues can spend.
In that context, it’s no surprise that Luis Enrique and Vincent Kompany can afford to focus on the kind of freedom and self expression we all want to see from the best attacking players in the Premier League, but there’s little need for control and discipline when your nearest challengers are probably about on a par with mid-table sides like Brentford.
Case-in-point: Arsenal beat Bayern 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium in the league phase of this competition earlier this season and Harry Kane…
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