PSG vs. Arsenal: Mikel Arteta told to repeat 2020 Man City trick in Champions League final

As Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal prepare for battle in the 2025-26 Champions League final, here is how the Sports Mole experts expect the Budapest showdown to go.

Ben Knapton, Site Coordinator: 'Man City 2020 FA Cup repeat'

I think of this game as the 2020 FA Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Man City.

It was right in the first six months of Arteta's tenure, he set up in a 3-4-3, Arsenal had their backs against the wall for pretty much all of that game and somehow nicked a 2-0 win.

I think they're going to have to do something quite similar here if they're going to somehow emerge as European champions.

My main concern for this one is the right back spot. There's no Ben White, and Jurrien Timber has been out for two months.

There is hope that he will be fit, but even then, if he's been out for two months he might just be 70% or 80%. For me he's one of the best 1v1 defenders in Europe, but that's when he's fully fit.

If you're putting him up against [Khvicha] Kvaratskhelia when he's not entirely ready, that could be disastrous for Arsenal.

The alternatives are: Mosquera, who can do a job at right-back but it's not his natural position and he's inexperienced; Declan Rice, we saw how that went at West Ham; or the wild card alternative of playing William Saliba at right back, and then you've got Gabriel, Hincapie and Calafiori, three left-footers in the back line.

It's a real dilemma for Arteta to solve, but whoever is on that right hand side, Kvaratskhelia is going to be licking his lips.

On PSG's end, Hakimi suffered quite a severe hamstring injury against Bayern in the semi-finals. At the time it was stated that he could be out for a few weeks.

It's looking likely that he's going to be in the squad but almost certainly on the bench, and there's no expectation that he'll start.

It looks like it will be Warren Zaire-Emery at right back, their emergency option there, similar to how Arsenal had the Thomas Partey emergency option last year, but he's a quality one.

That then frees up the midfield of Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Joao Neves, which is just an incredible trio.

There is also concern about Ousmane Dembele, who came off with a calf concern in PSG's last league game of the season against Paris FC.

When that happened, all Arsenal fans were thinking alarm bells for PSG and that this could be a massive boost. He came off in the 27th minute, but it's now emerged that it was mainly precautionary. He has said himself that he will be fit to start.

Not having Hakimi, who for me is maybe the best defender in the world, but Nuno Mendes, Gabriel and Saliba are certainly in that conversation.

Oliver Thomas, Senior Reporter: 'PSG outscoring Arsenal, not Arsenal outscoring PSG'

The goals that PSG have scored and the quality of Arsenal defensively are really on show, especially in the Champions League. You can be forgiven for dubbing this an attack versus defence final.

If you look at PSG, they are probably one of, if not the best attacking team in Europe, and Arsenal have probably got the strongest defence in Europe.

It's just which one of those will prevail on the day. It is a tough one to call, but an intriguing final nonetheless.

It's good to see two league champions coming head-to-head, so we should be in for a really interesting game. In terms of a prediction, I'd probably slightly side with PSG at the moment.

Not only have they been here before, but they've had to beat a lot of good teams to get to the final. You could argue maybe that Chelsea and Liverpool are currently not strong and not performing as well as they'd like to be.

But they didn't just beat both those teams, they beat Chelsea 8-2 on aggregate and then 4-0 against Liverpool, two statement wins.

And then to go on and beat Bayern Munich, who for me were my favourites to win the Champions League.

Will they find a way to breach this stubborn Arsenal defence? I think there are going to be goals in this game, and I can probably see PSG outscoring Arsenal more than I can see Arsenal outscoring PSG. Strong attack versus strong defence, it might be PSG in the end that comes out on top, and we'll have to see.