The second bite of Paris Saint -Germain in a final of the Champions League is richly deserved – but Arsenal must become stronger afterwards if they want to sit at the European Upper Table, Ian Ladyman writes

With great approval with its left foot and a fist to the crowd, the PSG Captain Marquinhos knew that this was done. Seen another English challenge, one Champions League finally reached. The whistle blew this night and a step forward was taken in the direction of acceptance and real relevance.

And it is this the club of Qatar and the French capital craves more than anything. More than their wealth and their grilles littered with stars. More than their endless Ligue Une titles.

It is Europe and the Champions League that PSG drives. Until they have that trophy and wear it, they know that they will not be part of the only club that really matters.

Only such a triumph will see them freely from a cloak of uncertainty and inferiority that they bear as a fake fur. And now they only have their second snack.

It has taken a complete transformation of style and culture to get PSG to a final in Munich at the end of the month.

For years English clubs came here to his stadium west of Paris to play a team that was always dangerous. How could it not be with players like Kylian Mbappe” Neymar” Lionel Messi And Angel Di Maria Wear the red and blue?

Paris Saint-Germain booked their second Champions League-Laatste place in five years with a victory over Arsenal

European Glory has long been the goal for the Qatarese ownership of the club (club president Nasser al-Khelaifi depicted center)

PSG has become a discouraging presence under Luis Enrique and Arsenal was the victim of their new look team

But dangerous is not the same as discouraging and not the same as formidable. PSG now has a different kind of European cache and it has turned out to be too much for Arsenal here, just as it had more than two legs for Aston Villa and Liverpool.

To have disabled three Premier League teams, it means a huge amount for coach Luis Enrique and his club. The Premier League statement to be the world’s best Rangles in all over Europe.

Enrique, a Spaniard, turned his nose up on the idea before last week’s first stage in the Emirates and here he had his glorious justification.

This is finally a real PSG team. After their beauty parades have disappeared from recent years, version 2025 knows how to do a job and here it was too good for an Arsenal team that will recover how bad it played in the Emirates eight days earlier.

There are few football seasons that do not end up with some regret and maybe Arsenal’s will do this with thoughts that linger last week and a league -class against West Ham at the end of February. Both games offered a clear opportunity to build on at great moments and both now represent the divided opportunities.

That weekend in February Arsenal saw Neuriën after a dismantling of Manchester City. Liverpool wiggled on the back of uncertain form and would travel to the city the next day. But Arsenal lost and – thereby encouraged – Liverpool won.

Last week, PSG’s arrival meanwhile offered the Arteta team the chance to repeat their quarter -final resignation of European champions Real Madrid. But again they staggered.

Last Tuesday’s defeat was perhaps their most demoralizing of the season and she left too much to do here on a night that they were considerably better, but still good enough for a while.

But for the Gunners the chance to reach their first Champions League final for almost two decades was too much

After a demoralizing first legs, the side of Mikel Arteta could not fight in Paris

Arsenal must now become a persistent force in the later stages of Europe if they have to earn a chair at the top table

So what happens next is just as important for Arsenal as for PSG. The Enrique team should go a better one against Inter than PSG did when losing the 2020 Covid final in Lisbon. In the meantime, Arsenal has to build, regrouping and returning easily. It is what the really big clubs do.

Arteta had asked his players to write history here and it was a nice rule. But it is not history that Arsenal has to make now, but habits.

Arsenal was previously in a Champions League final. The Arsene Wenger team lost to Barcelona in 2006. But the London Club has not consistently threatened a residence in the last phases. They have never been part of a gang consisting of the great Spanish and Italian teams and, more recently, Liverpool and City.

And this is what should change. Occasionally visits are not enough. Inspiration and motivation are what they have to make of a journey that is encouraging, but is now over.

Arsenal gave this a good course and Arteta’s work in the Emirates More than five and a half years was progressive and brave. But it is five years without a trophy and his claim here on Tuesday that his team has been better in the past two seasons than was champion Liverpool in this was just as hollow as the one who followed PSG full -time who was saved by their goalkeeper.

It is not difficult to know what Arsenal should do now. They need bodies in important positions and, in the midst of the inevitable chatter of this failure, they need some calmness if they make their way through what should certainly be a big summer of recruitment. They are a very good team, but not a complete one.

PSG now has their second bite at a Champions League final. Arsenal is too late to say the least.