How to lose a game of football part 94: losing while appearing to win, advanced level. It will be tempting to see in the opening 27 minutes of this Champions League semi-final second leg a perfect little miniature, an executive summary of a team and a mini-era, out there under the hard white lights of the Parc des Princes, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal pinned and wriggling on the wall.
The club’s supporters will feel the pain more keenly because for the first 26 of those 27 minutes this was a slick, luminous, dominant Arsenal away performance. They flooded the midfield, controlled the ball, won it back aggressively. Martin Ødegaard squirrelled about, all malevolent invention. Arsenal had 75% possession, six shots and 10 crosses. They were all over this game, arms on both lapels, pressing PSG back against the edge of things.
