Liverpool’s modern Champions League audition came in Kyiv in 2018 and it was a chastening experience. Two cataclysmic errors from goalkeeper Loris Karius live in the memory but there was more to the defeat than that.
Jurgen Klopp’s team were a growing European force and were to prove it by lifting the trophy a year later. But back then in the Ukraine, Liverpool simply were not ready. Not yet.
Maybe this is where we find Arsenal now. The best team in England this year. Winners again after two decades stranded beneath the Premier League summit looking up. But in terms of Europe and the Champions League, Saturday night in Budapest felt like a screen test and it was one they ultimately and narrowly failed.
The immediate aftermath was pretty hard to watch. It always is. There were tears on and off the pitch. To lose a penalty shoot-out in a final brings with it some consolation, a knowledge that you were not really beaten – that you were almost good enough. Equally, the pain of being so close to the trophy that you can almost see your face in it brings with it a different kind of regret.
Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta was nevertheless strident. As he sat behind a press conference table deep in the Puskas Stadium, he took the opportunity to deliver a message and it was a simple one.
‘We must start to make some very important decisions if we want to reach another level,’ said Arteta. ‘And we are going to have to show that ambition. We are more than capable of doing it but it’s going to demand us to be very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart.’
Despite Saturday’s disappointment, Arteta now speaks from a relative position of strength. A Premier League title does that. With this in mind, it’s not much of a stretch to presume he was talking about the need for investment in players and that’s only right.
Mikel Arteta saw his side fall agonisingly short of their first Champions League crown
Liverpool won the league a year ago and invested heavily. It may not yet have worked for them but that’s beside the point. The motivation was sound.
Good teams should always invest when they are winning. Arsenal would be foolish not to. Nevertheless, it’s not only recruitment that will signpost the modern Arsenal’s future but also the way that Arteta wishes his team to play.
The Spaniard’s pragmatism has steadily evolved over the last couple of years and has done its job in turning three league runners-up spots in to a league title. It’s easy to deride it and it’s not always pretty to watch. But it’s worked. What we don’t know is whether a focus on safety-first football, set-pieces and physical power can take Arsenal any further.
It’s worth repeating that Arsenal had only 25 per cent of the ball on Saturday night against PSG and not a single shot on target after Kai Havertz’s sixth-minute goal. For all that we can talk up Arsenal’s organisation and resoluteness, that’s not something that’s going to win a team a Champions League final very often.
So it feels as though Arsenal must take the next steps now. They must move forwards. We are not talking about something brand new but rather a refinement, an advancement, of the model. Repeat mode is only likely to encourage domestic rivals to catch up. Arteta is a young manager and he has a young team with lots of improvement within.
That Liverpool team of 2018 had only been Jurgen Klopp’s to shape for two-and-a-half years. In many ways it was green and lacked some depth. Trent Alexander-Arnold was only 19. Nathaniel Clyne and Dominic Solanke were on the bench in Kyiv. The team that returned to beat Tottenham in Madrid a year later had upgrades in goal, at centre half and at the base of midfield.
Jordan Henderson was among the devastated Liverpool players in 2018 – but they won the competition a year later
Arsenal are further along than that and as such the platform would appear to be there but the comparisons are still worthwhile. Improvement took Liverpool to where they wished to be and Arteta is asking for fresh blood now. Whether he has the willingness or indeed the courage to give his team a greater freedom to play remains to be seen.
Arsenal could do with an injection of pace going forwards. They could do with another option on the left. Leandro Trossard is 31 and Gabriel Martinelli has not trained on. But they also need a number of their players to make the leap to the next level.
Mo Salah was not a double player of the year back in 2018. Virgil van Dijk had been at the club six months. They – and the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson – improved year on year for the next three or four seasons. Can Arteta now elicit similar progress from Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Viktor Gyokeres?
Kai Havertz scored in the sixth minute but Arsenal rarely threaten PSG’s goal after that
Gyokeres and the holding player Martin Zubimendi were last summer’s big signings at the Emirates and cost more than £100m between them. Both have played big roles in Arsenal’s season but neither were selected on Saturday night.
That is indicative of Arteta’s comfort when it comes to big decisions. In the second half in Budapest, he swapped his entire forward line. Now it feels like it’s time to make some for the long term, both in the market and on the field.
Former Arsenal central defender Martin Keown put it rather well when he was asked on Saturday to draw comparisons between this defeat and one Arsene Wenger’s team suffered in the final against Barcelona in 2006.
‘That was the end of an era for us but this should be the beginning for this Arsenal team,’ said Keown.
