Arsenal drew a blank as they lost to PSG on Tuesday evening in the Champions League.
After putting five goals past Real Madrid over two legs, Arsenal’s attacking issues were on show against PSG as they failed to score in the home leg of their biggest Champions League tie in almost two decades.
Arsenal have striking issues, that much is clear to anyone. Kai Havertz is out for the season, while Arsenal are desperate to sign Alexander Isak this summer.
Unfortunately, those attacking reinforcements will have to wait, and, on Tuesday, they were relying on Leandro Trossard to lead the line.
Trossard has been praised for his performances recently, but he wasn’t up to standard here.
Speaking on the Wrighty’s House Podcast, Ian Wright has been discussing Trossard’s performance vs PSG, and he wasn’t too kind to the £27m Belgian.
Ian Wright criticises Leandro Trossard after PSG performance
Wright shared his verdict on Trossard’s performance for Arsenal.
The pundit noted that Trossard was unable to make any sort of impact vs PSG, claiming that he didn’t see the attacker do anything of note throughout the entire match.
“The centre-halves didn’t have anywhere near enough pressure on them. Leandro, he couldn’t hurt them he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t impose himself on the game, I didn’t see him do anything of any note
Leandro Trossard’s PSG performance in numbers
Wright says that Trossard didn’t do anything vs PSG, but that may be a tad harsh.
Indeed, while the striker was unable to get his name on the scoresheet, he put in a real shift against PSG, and he even forced Gianluigi Donarumma into a couple of decent saves.
The stats show that Trossard had a difficult evening, but he wasn’t as useless as Wright perhaps makes out.
| Leandro Trossard stats vs PSG | |
| Shots | 3 |
| Shots on target | 2 |
| Times dispossesed | 5 |
| Key passes | 0 |
Ultimately, this was always going to be a difficult game for Trossard. The Belgian isn’t a natural striker, and he’s never played a game of this magnitude before.
The PSG defence is there to be gotten at, as Aston Villa showed in the quarter-finals, but, on this occasion, Trossard really couldn’t make much happen in this match.
With Thomas Partey set to return in the second-leg, Trossard could well find himself on the bench at the Parc des Princes as Mikel Merino is likely to return up front.
Merino has been fantastic as a striker this season, and he may be Arsenal’s best hope of progressing to the Champions League final.
