French World Cup winner Christophe Dugarry says it would have been a “scandal” had Arsenal won the Champions League final and described their approach in the final against Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday night as “unbearable”.
The Gunners went ahead through Kai Havertz’s sixth-minute goal but then sat back and looked to preserve their lead and it almost worked, PSG having to wait until midway through the second half for the equaliser provided by Ousmane Dembele’s penalty.
The game eventually finished 1-1 after extra-time and went to a penalty shoot-out that the Parisians won after Gabriel blazed his effort over the bar.
Havertz’s goal was Arsenal’s only shot on target in the 120 minutes and they managed just 28% possession against a PSG side that retained the trophy.
Dugarry, who won the World Cup with Les Bleus in 1998 and is now an outspoken pundit on French television, was appalled by the tactics employed by Mikel Arteta’s Premier League winners and felt the better side had emerged victorious.
He told the Rothen s’enflamme show on RMC: “Arsenal will remain the largest club never to have won the Champions League. Their intentions were clear from the start, they did nothing. At no time did they look to create something. All we saw were clearances and an Arsenal team that systematically tried to waste time. It was unbearable.”
The 54-year-old, who played for the likes of Bordeaux, AC Milan and Barcelona in an illustrious career, believes Arsenal’s failure to lift the trophy was good for the game.
“What was almost terrible for football and the people who love it is that they [Arsenal] almost gave the illusion that by creating and doing so little, you can win the Champions League,” he added. “Because it’s not just in this game that they created so little. This has been the case for many games.”
There seemed very little contrition from the Arsenal players as they celebrated their league success on the streets of North London on Sunday but Dugarry insists they will have regret inside.
He said: “If they want to win it [the Champions League] one day, they need to start playing football. Because that’s not Arsenal! This club has a history, it’s the Gunners. They can’t play like that, it’s not possible. You can’t win the Champions League by doing things like that. And even if they had succeeded, it would have been a scandal.
“The best way to have regrets is to play the way they played. When you play like that and you lose, you have regrets all your life. If they had tried to play and lost, they would not have had any regrets. Now, they have a lot of them.”
We need to do better, admits Arteta
Arteta has spent around £900million since taking over in 2019 but question marks persist around the team’s style of play.
It has been reported the club will try to adopt a more attacking approach next season – and target their summer recruitment with that in mind.
Arteta admitted there were shortcomings with their set-up in Budapest.
“We need to do better, we have to improve and find different margins to get the outcome that we want,” he said.
