Peter Schmeichel claims Arsenal are not even the second best team in Europe this season despite their historic achievement of making it to the Champions League final.
The Gunners booked their place in Budapest, where they will face Paris Saint-Germain, after a narrow 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid on Tuesday secured a 2-1 aggregate victory.
Mikel Arteta’s side now know they will face the holders later this month after PSG produced a polished and mature display at the Allianz Arena to knock out Bayern Munich.
Vincent Kompany’s side were confident of overturning a one-goal deficit after last week’s pulsating reverse fixture in Paris, but Ousmane Dembele’s early goal stunned the German champions.
Bayern never truly recovered from that setback and were able only to muster an injury time equaliser from Harry Kane that earned an ultimately meaningless draw on the night.
Despite their limp exit, Schmeichel believes Bayern remain a better team than the Arsenal side that will contest the final.
‘I think we can easily argue this but I still think today Bayern Munich are still the second best team in Europe and PSG is by far the best,’ the former Manchester United goalkeeper told CBS.
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‘It’s something you take. If you have to leave a tournament like this and got beaten by a much better team that is some consolation. You can take that on and get some confidence for next season.
‘They have progressed. They are further in the tournament than they were last season. You have to give Kompany credit for having improved his side, using his way of playing.
‘It takes time to get to that level. It’s taken time for PSG as well.
‘At the beginning of the game Olse got the ball and he lost it straight away. He got the ball again within a couple of seconds and slipped and lost it again.
‘They never really recovered from that. Harry Kane went a little bit deep and got tackled and as Harry Kane is doing he seeks all that space but he was closed down all the time.
‘PSG right from the first moment kind of sucked all the confidence out of Bayern Munich. Confidence is what we’ve seen all the way through so it was very uncharacteristic.’
Bayern, meanwhile, were furious not to have been awarded a penalty midway through the first half.
Goalkeeper Matvei Safonov made an uncertain punch and the ball landed with Vitinha, who in attempting to clear slammed the ball against the arm of team-mate Joao Neves.
As it was another PSG player that had made the clearance, it was not deemed to be handball despite Neves’ arm being well away from his body.
‘I understand if they’re disappointed,’ Kompany told TNT Sports when asked what he said afterwards to his players. ‘I think we gave everything.
‘It was a game of details. I think we’ve played five times against PSG in the last two years and we’ve won two times, they’ve won two times and now was a draw, so it’s just been that kind of game every single time.
‘We have to look at some of the phases that were decided by the officials across the two games which, it’s never an excuse for everything…but it matters.
‘If we look at both legs probably too much went against us. The guys gave everything and we tried against a fantastic PSG team.’