High apologies and low at really big moments. In short, that is the story of the Arsenal season.
Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, says that his team was better than Paris Saint-Germain over two legs of their semi-final of the Champions League. They were not.
He says that Gianluigi Donnarumma, the PSG goalkeeper, was the best player in the draw. It wasn't him.
He says that Arsenal was the best team in the competition. They were not.
He says that Arsenal in the Premier League has been better than Liverpool for the past two seasons. They were not. And even if they were, it is not relevant. Liverpool is champions and the points gap is convincing and embarrassingly wide.
Arteta is generally not madness. But while the disappointment of this broken season swirls, he threatens to sound like one.
Reports hurts and it does strange things to the Spirit. So we will give Arteta the benefit of the doubt about some things.
Similarly, when it has come to the truly important moments of this season, Arsenal has fallen short and – regardless of the injury list that his team has hindered – he should be worried. They should be better. They must be better. And fast.
A look at the Liverpool season sees statement victories and important results spread everywhere. No team is perfect, but in general, when the Arne Slot team had to bounce, they were bounced.
Arsenal was not bumped. There has been too much Splat. They have not felt that rush or momentum and adrenaline that should take a champion team from one big victory to another.
The London club has probably recorded four such victories in the course of the season. A Champions League first phase victory over PSG in October, a 5-1 Bonnnissen by Manchester City in the Premier League in February and their home and road victories over Real Madrid in recent weeks.
Impressive versions at the separately taken, but isolated results do not lead a team anywhere. It is the oeuvre that matters and just like Arsenal did not take the feeling of their Real Madrid successes in the home leg of the semi-final against PSG, so they stood in their own country after that victory against City.
The Emirates lived in the late winter that day. 'Stay modest' was their message to Erling Haaland after that victory. Young Myles Lewis-Skelly even mimed the Feast of the Great City Striker after scoring one of the goals.
That was all very nice until they followed it with a Carabao Cup semi-final defeat in Newcastle three days later and, soon, a home reach on West Ham that almost decided the title race.
Die-samen with the loss for PSG at the Emirates Last week, probably fell as the big mistake of the season.
Liverpool wiggled at the time. Their form was uncertain and they had to play in the city the next day. A victory for Arsenal would have brought the whole thing to the boil. But Arsenal didn't win. West Ham did it. You could almost feel the release of the pressure valve at Anfield. Liverpool, quite predictable, won at Etihad and that was just about that.
Now you can consider all this as an unhappy coincidence if you want. Or you can look back on a season that was only unable to flee when the chance was there and ask why that happened.
Even a Carabao Cup victory would have helped Arteta, simply because it would have stopped tapping a clock that now says that Arsenal has not canceled a trophy for five years.
But Arsenal flunked that one who lost two legs from the semi-final while the FA Cup disappeared when they could not beat 10-man Manchester United at home in round three.
Incidentally, they had a large number of their best players on the field, and still couldn't score. Yes, Arsenal missed their forward Kai Havertz, but he played against United in that one and missed the chances that his grandmother might have been depicted to score.
So regret is the compelling theme of the Arsenal season in the way it might not have been in the previous two.
Nobody is losing two title competitions to a formidable city team. Heavens, Liverpool know how that feels. But this one has been different. Those campaigns were characterized by progress – by the feeling of a second coming – in a way that it does not have.
This feels like a stall. It feels like a break is pressed on an evolution. How many Arsenal players would it make it in your team of the season? Declan Rice? Maybe. Anyone else? Probably not.
So now it is indeed half a decade without that trophy and the clock starts to tap Arteta. The Spaniard remains one of our most impressive and admirable managers. I don't doubt his oeuvre at the Emirates and the travel direction of his club remains ahead.
But the 43-year-old will start this summer, knowing that recruitment is in the heart of next season's prospects. Better players. More players. The right players. But also sharper brain and harder spirits. A better understanding of the EB and the flow of a football season and an instinctive feeling about when the level should be increased.
Arsenal remains a very good team but not a champion team. Apologies and statements full of gaps do not help them with that.
Take the Trent money and continue with this Saga
If Real Madrid Liverpool offers money to release Trent Alexander Arnold from his contract, so that he can play for them in the club World Cup, the Premier League champions should take it.
This already feels like a story that could be ugly if it is allowed to drag, so an early farewell can suit everyone.
Why Terry should not have taken a notorious penalty
Claude Makelele has waited 17 years to tell us that one of the Great Champions League stories should never have been written.
The former midfielder of France – once from Chelsea – claims that John Terry would not take the penalty he picked in the last shootout of 2008 against Manchester United in Moscow.
Knowing that a successful kick would protect the trophy, Makelele says that the Chelsea defender has taken the ball from Salomon Kalou.
“He tried to be the hero and I was very angry when he missed,” says Makelele.
We are waiting for Terry's response to this one, because it is a pretty claim. But anyway, there is another way to look at it.
Terry was the captain of Chelsea and the biggest trophy in the history of the club was at stake. Maybe he just thought he should take responsibility. Maybe that's just a leader trying to lead.
You need more than that, Tony
Brighton -chairman Tony Bloom hopes that he can 'disturb the Scottish football by making an investment of £ 10 million in hearts.
Celtic earned more than £ 90 million from the Champions League this season, so it's an ambitious claim.