Match report – Player ratings – By the numbers – Video

So, a draw last night would have been a decent result if it had been 1-1, but as both sides benefited from an own goal in the second period, it’s advantage PSG. If they win their final game, they’ll top the group regardless of what we do in Basel. So, it’s very much a case of ‘Come on Ludogorets!’, otherwise it’ll be second and all that might entail in the round of 16.

Arsene Wenger made some changes to the team last night, with Kieran Gibbs coming in for Nacho Monreal, a midfield duo of Ramsey and Coquelin, Alex Iwobi on the left with Sanchez on the right, and Olivier Giroud up front.

We started brightly enough, but PSG went ahead through man monster Edinson Cavani who poked home at the back post after our defence had been carved open. I haven’t seen any replays but it looked a bit offside from where I was sitting. I’m assuming it wasn’t and our two central defenders need to take a long hard look at themselves this morning because they were poor for that, and in general.

We didn’t really cause them too many problems, but late in the first half Alexis looked to have been fouled in the area and the referee pointed to the spot. Cavani, hungry for souls and or brains, decided he would keep the ball to try to devour it, but that didn’t put off Giroud who placed it on the spot and equalised. This time he celebrated his goal.

Early in the second period we went ahead when Owen Goal put the ball into his own net and to be fair he looked like our most dangerous player at that point. The front three that Arsene Wenger selected really didn’t gel. Iwobi was tentative, Alexis looked a bit out of sorts on the right, and Giroud got practically no service at all.

Still, we were ahead, but PSG always looked busy and quite dangerous. I thought we were pretty poor defensively, and despite Ramsey and Coquelin putting in a shift ahead of them, the back four looked less than secure. Their passing at times was maddening.

Their equaliser came from a corner, Iwobi’s glancing header put the ball past David Ospina who looked to have the initial header covered. Unfortunate for the young man, and the old adage about how you shouldn’t make a substitution at the corner was shown to be nonsense as Arsenal were waiting for a few minutes to bring on Granit Xhaka for the Nigerian international but decided against it because of the PSG set-piece.

Further changes, with Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain on for Coquelin and Jenkinson, failed to spark us back into life. We never really looked like getting a winner, Cavani was amusingly and thankfully hopeless again despite his goal, and on the night I don’t think we can have too many complaints about the result.

Afterwards, Arsene Wenger said:

I felt we had good periods in the game but we were not technically fluent enough not for 90 minutes to dominate our subject. My concern tonight is that we were 2-1 up and did not continue to maintain the pressure on them. We allowed them to come back at us. It’s difficult to understand how easily we gave a goal away at a corner.

At the moment we lack something in our creativity.

A third successive draw means we remain unbeaten in November but now our Champions League future is out of our hands. We can still top the group, but it’s down to Ludogorets to get something from their game in Paris in the final round to make that happen. You can’t rule it out, but you wouldn’t necessarily bank on that happening, so another second place finish in the group seems the most likely outcome.

What that fully means will only been known after the final round of games, but as it stands it’ll leave us looking at one of Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, and Monaco with Juventus, Sevilla, Napoli and Benfica other potential opposition. I, for one, am looking forward to nice jamón as we endure another difficult night the Camp Nou when they make us enter the stadium via a rope-bridge over a moat of piranha.

Overall though, the changes the manager made really didn’t work. While I’m glad he tried to do something different, it didn’t really click, and we never got on top of PSG who were, to be fair, pretty decent throughout.

The front three looked a bit lopsided, Mesut Ozil couldn’t dictate the play the way we would have liked, and for a game at home it was disappointingly ineffective. We haven’t played well for quite a while now and that’s a bit of a worry. Yes, we remain unbeaten and I do think that’s important, but you’d be hard pressed to say it’s because we’ve been anything close to our best.

Right, that’s about that, but no doubt we’ll discuss it in more detail later on at the now sold-out Arsecast Live. We’ll have Philippe Auclair, Amy Lawrence and Stuart MacFarlane along with myself and James to pore over the PSG game and everything else, and if you can’t be there don’t worry as it’ll be available tomorrow as a podcast.

So, see some of you later, we’ll have all the news and views throughout the day over here, and Tim Stillman will be here with his column later on.

Have a good one.