PSG are favourites heading into the Champions League final on Saturday, but they are far from flawless. Here’s how Arsenal could get the better of them.
Arsenal are just one win away from history.
Win this weekend’s Champions League final in Budapest and Mikel Arteta and his team will go down as legends. They would become the 25th different winners of the competition (including its time as the European Cup) having never won it before, and after they wrapped up the Premier League title last week, they’d also be just the fourth English club to complete the European double.
History awaits. It’s within Arsenal’s grasp. They are just 90 minutes away.
The only problem is that it’s Paris Saint-Germain who stand in their way.
Can Arsenal topple psg?
That means Arsenal have to beat the European champions to take their crown, or hold out for 120 minutes and hope they can win on penalties. Either way, it’s a big ask.
PSG won last season’s final against Inter 5-0, having knocked out Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal, while this season they have seen off Monaco, Chelsea, Liverpool and Bayern Munich in the knockout stages.
They have an exceptional record against Premier League clubs, winning each of their last five ties with English opponents. And in knocking out Bayern, whom they kept at arm’s length in the second leg, they proved they can beat anyone. The German champions were, at the time, the best team in the world in the Opta Power Rankings.
Top spot is now held by Arsenal, who moved into first place last week, and there is no question they pose a formidable threat to PSG’s hopes of retaining their title.
But if Arsenal are to topple the reigning champions, they will need to have the game of their lives, and it’s natural to assume any chance of success will start with their exceptional defence playing out of its skin to keep PSG’s stacked forward line quiet.
If Arsenal are to win, many would expect them to do so via a narrow scoreline and, probably, a clean sheet. After all, no team in Europe’s top five leagues has won more games in all competitions this season by a specific scoreline than Arsenal have done 1-0 (11).
However, as good as Arsenal’s defence is, stopping Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is a challenge few opponents manage. PSG need only one more goal in the Champions League to match Barcelona’s record of 45 goals scored in a season (in 1999-00). In all competitions, meanwhile, they have scored at least once in each of their last 27 games, netting 62 times in total – a rate of 2.24 goals per game.
Many of the opponents in that run are nowhere near Arsenal’s level, but in recent weeks PSG still put four past Liverpool over two legs, five and then three past Chelsea, and five past Bayern. It was probably the most basic starting point of Inter’s gameplan in last season’s final to hold out for as long as possible at the back, and look how that went.
This weekend, Arsenal probably need to assume PSG will score at some point, and so may well need to go on the attack.
Perhaps them doing so wouldn’t be a huge surprise, though, given how they approached their trip to the Etihad Stadium to face Manchester City last month. That day, Arsenal pressed from the front from the off, applying more pressures to their opponents (474) than they did in any other Premier League game this season. They didn’t sit off at any stage, and it was Kai Havertz’s work in pressing high up the pitch that forced Arsenal’s only goal of the game.
They may also be encouraged to press by the fact PSG are susceptible to mistakes of their own. The European champions have committed the joint-most errors leading to an opposition shot in the Champions League this season (26), and the joint-most errors leading to a goal (six).
Those numbers are affected by PSG having played more matches than most, but even on a per-game basis, they rank unfavourably: they are fourth for errors leading to a shot (1.63) and ninth for errors leading to a goal (0.38).
PSG errors leading to shots UCL 2025-26
They get into trouble playing out from the back surprisingly often given the technical ability they possess right across the pitch. Only two teams have lost possession within 40 metres of their own goalline more times in the Champions League this season than PSG, who have done so 141 times, at an average of 8.8 times per game.
PSG high turnovers against UCL 2025-26
That per-game rate is towards the worse end (14th most) among the 36 teams to compete in the Champions League this season, but what really puts it into context is the fact Bayern (4.0 per game), Arsenal (4.4), Liverpool (5.0) and Manchester City (5.4) – teams PSG will consider themselves at least peers of – all rank among the competition’s best five teams in this regard.
Most crucially, only two teams have conceded more goals following a high turnover of possession in the Champions League this season than PSG (four), and only six have a worse per-game rate than them (0.25, or one every four games). The list of those six teams – PSV, Spurs, Bodø/Glimt, Juventus, Chelsea, Copenhagen – isn’t exactly one that PSG will want to be in.
Spurs were one of the teams to score a goal after winning the ball high up the pitch against PSG, doing so in their 5-3 defeat in Paris back in November. That night, they also scored from a corner, which is another route to goal Arsenal will surely hope to exploit.
Arsenal’s set-piece expertise needs no introduction, and while it isn’t a huge weakness for PSG, they certainly aren’t entirely secure at dead balls. Only five Ligue 1 teams conceded a higher proportion of their goals from set-pieces this season than PSG (20.7%), and they haven’t come up against anyone with Arsenal’s threat at dead balls.
But while set-pieces are few and far between, and although Arsenal are very good at winning them, there is no guarantee they will win many, and they may want to focus more energy attacking into the area where PSG appear most susceptible: down their right flank.
In Achraf Hakimi, PSG have one of the best attacking right-backs in world football, and he is encouraged to get forward at every opportunity. But that leaves space to be exploited. Of all 36 teams in this season’s Champions League, only PSV and Chelsea have seen their opponents create more chances down their right side than PSG (37.3%).
PSG attacking third against UCL 20252-6
Spurs and Chelsea both scored goals away to PSG after attacking down that flank and putting a ball across the face of goal – Archie Gray for Spurs and Pedro Neto for Chelsea – while Luis Díaz’s exceptional goal for Bayern at the Parc des Princes in the semi-final came after a darting run in behind the PSG defence that Hakimi made no effort to track, leaving the Colombian one on one with a helpless Marquinhos.
Arsenal’s left wing is, along with the right-back spot, probably the position where there is most uncertainty ahead of Saturday’s game. Leandro Trossard has played there in most of Arsenal’s recent (meaningful) games, but there is an argument the direct running and pace of someone like Gabriel Martinelli could be more useful in making the most of the space in behind PSG’s right-back.
There’s no getting away from the cold hard truth that, however good Arsenal have been this season, they will be up against it this weekend. PSG are going for back-to-back Champions League crowns, while Arsenal have lost their last four major European finals.
They will need to be perfect from front to back to win their first Champions League title, but their chances should not be underestimated. PSG have their flaws, and Arsenal have more than enough in their ranks to take advantage.
UEFA Champions League Stats Opta
Enjoy this? Add Opta Analyst as a preferred source by clicking here.
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over onX, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.