BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Arsenal were taught a valuable lesson in their UEFA Champions League final loss to Paris Saint-Germain after a penalty shootout on Saturday, but will Mikel Arteta be brave enough to learn from it?
Quite simply, you can win a Premier League by mastering the art of defending, being the best at exploiting set-pieces and, more often than a great team should, stretching the boundaries of what is acceptable in terms of time-wasting and pressuring officials for free kicks.
But when the heat is on and you have to find something extra to win a Champions League final, being defensive, cautious and conservative just isn't going to cut it.
Arsenal ended the game having had just 26% possession -- the lowest of any Champions League finalist since the statistic was first recorded in 2004 -- and that was as much down their inhibited approach as PSG's ability to keep and move the ball.
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The Gunners ultimately only lost on penalties against PSG, the reigning European champions, and they end the season with the unenviable distinction of going through the entire competition without losing a game -- statistically the result stands as a draw -- but still failing to lift the Champions League trophy.
But that perhaps sums this Arsenal team up. Unbeaten, but they didn't do quite enough to win it. Being hard to beat is an essential quality and Arsenal's doggedness was the primary factor in their domestic success, ending a 22-year wait to take the Premier League trophy back to the club.
But after taking the lead in Budapest with Kai Havertz's sixth-minute opener, Arsenal tried to ride out the rest out of the game by holding on to what they had. There was no sense of going for the kill by trying to score a second or a third to put the game beyond PSG's reach.
It was all about being attritional, even ugly. Forget about the quality, just make sure you win. That extended to ridiculous levels of simulation -- Havertz and Leandro Trossard both failed to win free kicks after throwing themselves to the ground -- time-wasting and spoiling tactics which led to PSG coach Luis Enrique furiously tapping his watch to urge the officials to note the game-time lost to Arsenal's negative tactics.
Over the 120 minutes of match action, 31 minutes and 42 seconds were lost to Arsenal's time-wasting, which included delaying of free kicks, goal kicks, corners, restarts and throw-ins -- PSG's delays, by contrast, were 22 minutes and 12 seconds.
Defender Cristhian Mosquera was booked by referee Daniel Siebert one minute into the second half for taking too long with a throw-in, but the official was probably already irked by the entire Arsenal team delaying the start of the second half by sauntering onto the pitch two minutes after their PSG opponents.
It was petulant, entitled behaviour, as though Arteta's players were enjoying casting themselves as the villains of the piece. They knew it was winding up Luis Enrique and his players, but they should ask themselves whether it was really worth it.
All that Arsenal's tactics did was encourage PSG to attack and pile on the pressure. On a good night, they would have punished Arsenal by taking more of their chances, but they didn't want for trying to make something happen.
Arsenal? Just the same old story -- two solid banks in defence and midfield, moving across the pitch in tandem, suffocating the space and running down the clock.
Those are legitimate tactics, unlike some of the other stuff that does little for the team's reputation and are beneath a club of Arsenal's status. The Premier League champions should be prepared to go toe-to-toe with any opponent -- Liverpool and Manchester City have both been rewarded for their readiness to do so by winning the Champions League in recent years with adventurous football. Arsenal don't have that in their locker right now, though.
When they face a similarly formidable club, their results are nothing like they should be. They failed to beat Man City in the Premier League this season and also lost to them in the Carabao Cup final. Arsenal were also unable to beat last season's champions Liverpool. So, it is clear that they need to find something extra, or sign a game-changing player this summer, to give them the ability to be bolder against top-class opponents.
Arteta suggested after the defeat against PSG that he wants to make the changes that his team requires, but his challenge seemed to be to the club hierarchy rather than his players.
"We [will] start to make some very important decisions if we want to reach another level," Arteta said. "And we're going to have to show that ambition because 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."
The onus is also on Arteta, though. He was backed heavily in the transfer market last summer to sign forwards Viktor Gyökeres, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke, but none of them started in Budapest. All three eventually appeared on the pitch, but they all replaced a fellow attacking player.
There was no sense of Arteta releasing the shackles on his players and tactics. He must allow himself to sign a maverick, a player capable of turning a game on its head and giving his teammates the confidence to be more adventurous, but that decision is on the manager.
When Sir Alex Ferguson gave his half-time team talk during the 1999 Champions League final with his Manchester United team trailing 1-0 to Bayern Munich, he told his players that at the end of the game, they would be six feet away from the Champions League trophy but unable to touch it if they lost. It was Ferguson's way of telling his players to be brave and bold in chasing their ultimate dream and they were, scoring twice to win the competition.
Arteta needs to give himself the same pep talk. Unless his Arsenal side are prepared to give it a go and cut out the time-wasting and negativity, they will never get their hands on the Champions League trophy.
