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.
Mikel Arteta's tactical approach served them well in the Premier League title race, but was not enough to win them the Champions League final. Jean Catuffe/Getty Images 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.