Our Champions League semi-final still hangs in the balance despite us losing 1-0 to Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg.
Ousmane Dembele’s superb fourth-minute strike gives the French side a slender lead when we cross the Channel for the return game in eight days’ time, but we had our moments and thought we had equalised early in the second half but Mikel Merino saw a header ruled out for offside by VAR.
PSG may have beaten us for the first time ever, but with memories of heroic European victories this season fresh in our memory, everything is still to play for as we attempt to reach our second-ever Champions League final next month.
Early setback
Hosting its first men’s Champions League semi-final for 16 years, Emirates Stadium was whipped into a frenzy before kick-off with tifos, rousing renditions of popular chants and fireworks galore, but just four minutes after kick-off, that was tempered somewhat when the visitors found the net.
After a sustained period of PSG possession, Dembele picked the ball up in space and easily crossed halfway before passing to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and the diminutive winger scuttled into our box. He then chopped the ball back to PSG’s top marksman, who whipped an excellent first-time shot into the bottom corner of David Raya’s net to register his 11th goal in this season’s competition.
That setback rocked us and the French champions would boss proceedings early on. After 20 minutes we had just 24% of possession as Luis Enrique’s team strung sharp, accurate passes around the pitch, but only a tame Marquinhos header would force Raya into more work.
It was a similar story for Jakub Kiwior who nodded our first effort comfortably at Gianluigi Donnarumma, but Raya was by far the busiest keeper in the opening half and on the half-hour he had to get down smartly to prevent Desire Doue’s near-post shot putting the Parisians 2-0 ahead.
Plenty of positivity
But the final 15 minutes of the half saw us get a foothold back into the game and begin to show what we were about. Only a last-gasp tackle from Joao Neves nicked the ball off the toes from Mikel Merino when Kiwior squared into his path right in front of goal, and then Bukayo Saka couldn’t quite trouble Donnarumma when he produced a trademark cut inside and shot.
But right on the stroke of half-time, we had a huge opportunity to get level before the break when Myles Lewis-Skelly slipped a pass into Gabriel Martinelli who beat the offside trap to go through on goal with Donnarumma to beat. But his attempt to slip the ball around the giant Italian stopper couldn’t quite beat the keeper who made a good save, as PSG scrambled the ball away. But they headed into the away dressing room with something to think about.
After the break the positivity continued and we thought we’d got level within 90 seconds of the restart when Declan Rice whipped a devilish free-kick into a packed box and Merino headed it past Donnarumma, but after a lengthy VAR check, the goal was ruled out for a tight offside decision.
The momentum felt like it was shifting in our direction but we couldn’t quite find a way around the imposing Donnrumma, who 10 minutes into the second half had to use every inch of his 6ft 5in frame to tip a Leandro Trossard shot around his post when the Belgian was sent haring towards goal.
Late late-offs
But chances became harder to come by as the visitors dug in and thwarted our attacking enterprise, and on the counter would create plenty of dangerous moments as they looked to put themselves in a commanding position heading to the Parc des Princes.
Neves had the next best chance on 77 minutes when Enrique’s team won the ball high up the park but the Portuguese midfielder blasted over when well-placed, and then with seven minutes to go, we had two huge let-offs.
Substitutes Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos linked up to send the former in on goal, but he missed a glorious chance when he slid his shot past Raya’s far upright, and then 60 seconds later Ramos latched onto a long pass and had time to pick his spot but crashed a shot off the crossbar.
We conjured up one final chance in five minutes of stoppage time but Martinelli curled over the top as our 11-game undefeated European run in N5 came to an end. However, we head to the French capital next week just one goal behind, and still dreaming of making it to Munich at the end of May.
FACTS AND STATS
With ourselves (25y 192d) and PSG (25y 64d), this was the second Champions League semi-final to see both starting XIs have an average age of below 26 after Ajax against Bayern Munich in 1994/95.
We are the seventh side to play 200 games in the Champions League, and second English side to do so after Manchester United.
There were 26 passes in the build-up to PSG’s goal, the most for them on record in the competition and the most for a goal conceded by us in the competition on record (since 2003/04).
Ousmane Dembele’s goal (03:15) was the earliest we have conceded in the Champions League since Edinson Cavani’s goal for the same side in September 2016 (42 seconds), and the earliest they’ve conceded in the knockout stages of the competition.
We failed to score in a home Champions League game for the first time since a 2-0 defeat to Barcelona in the last 16 in February 2016, while only against Newcastle United in January in the League Cup (6) have we had more big chances without scoring (6) this season than their three this evening.
PSG have won five of their last seven away knockout stage games in the Champions League (L2), as many wins as in their previous 16 games in the competition.
Only Robert Lewandowski (40), Harry Kane (36) and Kylian Mbappe (34) have scored more goals in Europe's big five league in all competitions this season than Ousmane Dembele (33), while his 25 goals in 2025 is at least five more than any other player in that time.
In Ethan Nwaneri (18y 39d) and Myles Lewis-Skelly (18y 215d), the duo became the youngest and second-youngest English players and players from a Premier League side to appear in a Champions League semi-final.
What's next
We host Bournemouth in Premier League action on Saturday, before the second leg in Paris on Wednesday, May 7. Following that, we head to the newly-crownded Premier League champions Liverpool on Sunday, May 11.
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