Nuno Mendes hauled Noni Madueke to the ground inside the PSG box during extra time of the Champions League final, and referee Daniel Siebert waved it away. We went to a shootout we should never have needed, and lost it by one kick.

That is a pattern that ran through the second half, one that former players and pundits named in real time, and one the numbers from that night support completely.

The morning after Budapest, a certain reading of the numbers went around: PSG had 75.3% possession, 21 shots, an xG of 1.77. Arsenal had 24.7% possession, seven shots, an xG of 0.44. On that basis, some concluded PSG were dominant and deserving.

That reading is wrong, and here is why.

PSG had 21 shots and managed just one on target across 120 minutes, and that single effort was Dembélé's penalty. From open play, across two hours of football, the most expensive and most feared attack in Europe did not score against us once. Barcola blazed a breakaway into the side-netting. Kvaratskhelia, the best winger in the world right now, was suffocated for the first hour. They needed a referee's decision to beat us.

According to Opta, Arsenal's 24.7% possession was the lowest recorded by any team in a Champions League final since records began in 2003-04. It was also the lowest in any match under Arteta with eleven men on the pitch. Arsenal completed just 69 passes in the first half, also the lowest by any team in a Champions League final on record. And yet PSG managed just one shot on target across 120 minutes. A team built to dominate the ball gave up almost all of it by design, and the best attack in Europe still could not break through. That is a game plan executed at the highest level.

Arteta's approach was deliberate and it was ruthless. Arsenal's front two stayed narrow and central out of possession, funnelling PSG's play toward the wide areas and away from the spaces between the lines where Vitinha, Ruiz and Neves are most dangerous. Trossard and Saka tracked back early to lock play wide. Rice and Lewis-Skelly covered the inside channels ahead of the defensive line. When PSG pushed higher, Saliba and Gabriel widened to create an overload, giving us a four versus three advantage toward the byline.

Kvaratskhelia, the best winger in the world right now, was peripheral for the first hour. Dembele was largely anonymous until he stepped up to take the penalty. The midfield trio that had taken apart Inter Milan 5-0 in last year's final found nothing of substance across 120 minutes.

Arteta put it simply after the match: "It's not the plan to play in certain areas when you don't have the ball, but they force you to do that. So even more credit to the players."

The game plan worked, and that needs to be said clearly, because a significant portion of post-match commentary has suggested otherwise. A referee's decisions are what cost us.

The first major incident came before half-time. Arsenal were leading 1-0, awarded a corner, and Saka was placing the ball in the quadrant ready to deliver when Siebert blew for half-time before he could take it. Steven Gerrard, on TNT Sports, called it madness. Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett was blunter: "This action by the referee was frankly a bit of nonsense and avoidable." We have scored 27 times from corners in all competitions this season. That was not a routine dead ball Siebert waved away. That was one of our sharpest weapons, removed from the game on a whim.

Then the second half began, and the pattern shifted.

Samir Nasri, the former French international, said on Canal+ after the match: "In the second period, the referee systematically whistled against Arsenal. He punished them for their time-wasting in the first half."

What Nasri described, those watching could feel in real time. Every time we won the ball and tried to go forward, a whistle followed. Every 50-50 went PSG's way. Arteta and Rice were both booked for protesting.

Then came the penalty decisions, and this is where the asymmetry becomes impossible to ignore.

In the 65th minute, Mosquera caught Kvaratskhelia inside the box. Siebert pointed to the spot immediately, which Dembele converted. No complaints there.

In extra time, Mendes brought Madueke down inside the box as he burst through in behind. It was at least as clear as the Mosquera challenge, arguably cleaner. But Siebert waved it away and VAR didn’t intervene.

Hackett said his first instinct was a penalty should have been awarded and that VAR would almost certainly have let it stand had Siebert pointed to the spot. Ally McCoist, on commentary duty on TNT, said: "I think I'm giving that."

After the game, Arteta said: "I watched it back and it could easily be a penalty. The referee made that decision, and he made a different one with Mosquera. That is an important one."

Two near-identical challenges, one given and one not, in a final decided by a penalty shootout that we might never have needed.

The shootout discourse has focused on Gabriel and Eze. I want to address it directly.

Eze dragged his penalty wide, while Gabriel blazed his over the bar. Both will carry that for a long time. Both stepped up when our primary takers had been substituted. Gabriel volunteered knowing exactly what he was being asked to carry. Eze went into that shootout with a career record of eight penalties scored from ten, and a debut Arsenal season of 10 goals and six assists that included the first north London derby hat-trick in Premier League history.

Rice put it best afterwards: "We love them and we are with them. Without them we would not have won the Premier League." The cruelty of a shootout is that it produces a name to blame, and the name is almost never the right unit of analysis.

Saka is 24. Saliba is 24. Rice is 26. Odegaard is 27. Gyokeres just finished his first season with us. Rice said it after the final: "Since I came to the club it was a quarter-final exit, then a semi-final and now a final. We keep going."

We held a team that had beaten Inter Milan 5-0 in last year's final to one shot on target across 120 minutes. We came within a single kick of completing something this club has chased for 20 years.

Budapest hurt. It was supposed to hurt. But I have supported this club for 30 years and I know the difference between the end of something and the beginning of it.

This squad is not finished. Not even close.