We've seen PSG play a lot of notes ever since they hit the nitrous button in the Champions League. We've seen them overwhelm opponents with their tempo and skill (Manchester City, Brest, Liverpool and Villa at times). We've seen them lie in wait and hit on the counter (away to Liverpool, away to Villa). We've even see them crawl into a tight space and just pray the siege will be over in time (also away to Villa).
It's landed them just a couple steps from their second-ever Champions League final, their first proper one (2020's knockout round-in-a-can is its own thing). And against Arsenal in the first leg of the UCL semis, they showed off a new weapon, squeezing the life out of a match with a slender lead.
PSG takes the oxygen out of first leg of UCL semifinal vs. Arsenal
Tuesday's opening tie started in a familiar fashion, with PSG pressing Arsenal all over the field, causing turnovers and mistakes left and right. When they weren't doing that, they were producing pretty much an exact replica of their goal at Anfield at The Emirates: Suck an opponent up the field, then beat their press with a knifing ball through two different lines from the left-back area to a dropping Ousmane Dembele. See how similar these look:
After that goal. one wondered if the avalanche wasn't coming for Arsenal just the way it had come for City and Villa, and would have come for Liverpool if not for the efforts of Alisson in net. PSG had Arsenal pinned right outside their box, they were dancing through the midfield with the ball and they were getting their wingers isolated and pointed toward goal with menace in their eyes and feet.
The difference in this match was Arsenal got to grips with things much quicker than PSG's other opponents had. They were able to go long, successfully, over PSG's press, and get up the field, They were able to chop up the game through fouls and take away PSG's rhythm. Most of all, they were a real threat off set pieces, so they spent the second half of the opening 45 basically being Tony Pulis's Stoke City: Foul, play for set pieces, repeat.
PSG were definitely rocking even at the beginning of the second half. But the best way to not have to deal with set pieces is to simply have the ball, while not getting all that ambitious with it. While PSG had less of the ball overall in the second half, Arsenal didn't have a shot between the 56th and 88th minutes — in a game they trailed, no less. Bukayo Saka didn't manage a touch in PSG's box for the entire 90 minutes.
PSG was happy to just hang onto the ball around the halfway line and play it slowly, instead of their hair-on-fire ways we've gotten used to during this run. Eventually, Arsenal looked just as exhausted as everyone else has against PSG of late. It's one thing to press a team consistently high up the field and maintain energy levels; it's another thing to do it against PSG, who will beat it a few times and force teams to sprint back to defend every time.
Further piling on to Arsenal's burden is they just didn't have cards to play off the bench. Whereas Luis Enrique could bring on Bradley Barcola, Goncalo Ramos (combined 20 goals in Ligue 1) and Warren Zaire-Emery off PSG's bench, Mikel Arteta looked behind him and saw defenders, children whose voices just changed and the burned-out husk of Raheem Sterling. Everyone had to push through the wall on the field; there was no help coming.
While Arsenal didn't need a goal, they sure would have liked one. Yet all they could manage in the second half was 0.43 xG chasing one. PSG's midfield three of Vitinha, Ruiz and Neves misplaced just 11 of their 132 combined passes. They make every game seem like a kick-about in the park, because for them it is.
If PSG rue anything after the first leg, it'll be not opening the gap more than they did. They had the chances to, yet Arsenal are still just one corner or freekick away from starting this whole thing over. But after Tuesday, we know Enrique's club have another arrow in the quiver, which is just slowing letting the air out of the ball until the whole thing is flat. That's basically the whole set.