Excellent points here. Tim Stillman insightful as always. That said, give me a (winning) block of any form/fashion against PSG and I’ll genuflect until I’m out of knees.
A small (and probably barely significant) semantic issue with the way the CL Final is being pitched as some sort of attack v defence fest. Arsenal are not a defensive team at all. They are good at defending. There is a difference. They dominate possession, territory and shots in the majority of games they play- no PL team has scored more goals in the league in 2026. I think you can question or analyse the amount of risk Arsenal take when they have the ball and territory, but I think this description leads to a wider misunderstanding about Arsenal being a team that parks the bus, when they completely and utterly do not. They are solid structurally but any average position map would dispel the notion of a low block team. (The left-back is Calafiori!)