By Kanu Samuel
People watch and follow football for different reasons. Call me a hater as much as you want, I love entertainment in the round-leather game.
Growing up in North London in the last 70’s you had a choice between “1-0 to Boring Boring Arsenal” or “the flare & glamour of Spurs”, to choose between a formulae that produced winning efficiency or one that was dazzling on the eye and brought joy even in defeat.
Wenger came along two decades later and uncharacteristically of Arsenal, he changed their playing style, arguably copying their noisy neighbours and were alleged to have played good football
However, the dominance of Man Utd; billionaire owners introduced by Chelsea and latterly by Man City; had the effect of pushing the pretend Entertainer to the rear seat and the real Entertainers even further back.
In stepped Arteta to the Arsenal Brigade and after 6 attempts, he finally gets his team over the line winning the EPL in 2026 with a lower than usual points total in more recent times. They were not interested in looking pretty after 22 years drought, their objective was to be efficient and win the title, which they did. But at what cost? Ugly, Boring, negative and at times gangsterish-style football by Set-piece F.C., I didn’t say nor infer Rugby oooo. Fair do’s they used their tactics to win the EPL.
However, May 30th 2026 was a bridge too far in Instanbul where they sought to deploy similar defensive tactics to “Snatch and Grab” the Champions League after Arteta had stated his team was the best in Europe. Yes they finished top of the UCL group stages unbeaten, but so did Liverpool the previous year. They were unbeaten until reaching the finals, with arguably the weakest route, but that is not their fault.
UCL Match statistics are simply what they are as the English champs went to battle against the French champs, that’s right EPL -v- Ligue 1, not the Spanish, Italian or German champs of 2026, Wow! The Champions League big names were conspicuously absent – Real Madrid; Barcelona; Inter Milan; AC Milan; Bayern Munich etc.
Arsenal & PSG each came with a game plan and it is fair to say both teams went out to execute their respective plans. Without sounding bias we clearly saw one team attacking and one team defending, but that is both sides of the football coin, nothing strange to football or outside the rules.
The English champs recorded 24.7% possession over 120 minutes in a cup final and just ONE shot on target being their 6th minute opener, whilst the French champions had nearly 75.3% and one goal scored from the penalty spot to equalize.
Other Statistics for PSG and Arsenal respectively, betray the same storyline for all to see:
Big Chances 3 – 1
Total shots 21 – 7
Shots on target 4 – 1
Shots off target 12 – 1
Other Shots 5 – 5
Goalkeeper saves 0 – 3
Corner kicks 11 – 3
Passes 889 – 285
Offsides 0 – 3
Touches in opponents box 42 -16
Yellow cards 2 – 4
As I stated from the start people follow football for different reasons. For some it’s all about winning, for others it’s about entertainment. If this were a boxing match, in my opinion one team would have been declared winner long before the expire of 120 minutes. But football stalemates are resolved from the penalty spot and PSG came out victorious after Penalties 4 – 3.
Call me a Hater, but the Entertainer deserved to win that match, even if played in the fashion a hundred times. But more importantly we must ask the question whether the EPL is really the best league in the world, if the best of a bad EPL bunch performed well below par, with what is on record described as the worst team output by any team in the history of the Champions League finals.
I come in peace.
‘Gbenga Akinmoyo
writes from Idanre
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