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Make or break. Sink or swim. There's an all-or-nothing feel to the second leg of Arsenal's Champions League semi-final on Wednesday night.
Paris Saint-Germain hold a 1-0 advantage, but this competition has constantly reminded us that leads are perpetually precarious, no matter how big. The Gunners, who convincingly downed the 15-time winners in the previous round, must believe they're capable of joining Inter in Munich at the end of the month.
Mikel Arteta's side have crossed new frontiers throughout their continental journey in 2024/25, achieving milestones which serve as a reminder of the club's progression under their Spanish boss. Sure, the domestic season has been a disappointment, but Arsenal are 90 (maybe 120) minutes away from a Champions League final. Let's not lose sight of that.
“We rise to the big occasions and we’re ready to do it again," Declan Rice asserted on Tuesday, with the Gunners requiring a history-making triumph to reach the competition's showpiece event.
Here are three keys to Arsenal completing the turnaround at the Parc des Princes in the second leg of their semi-final with PSG.
1. Keep PSG at bay early doors
"It will be a very special night in Paris," Achraf Hakimi commented. "The atmosphere will be insane and everybody will be behind us inside and outside the stadium."
Paris is going to be in a state of frenzy, and Luis Enrique has said his team are going out to win the second leg. They don't know any other way.
It was an early goal which sapped the atmosphere last week, and Arsenal can't allow the Parisian ultras to build up ahead of steam on Wednesday. PSG are going to come out of the traps fast, and while I want to see Arteta's side take a more enterprising and brave approach to the second leg, weathering the early storm will be imperative.
With their current personnel, Arsenal aren't built to fight back from multiple goal deficits. They must keep the margins slim. 0-0 at half-time is fine. The visitors have got to be in the tie entering the closing stages.
An absence of immediate PSG momentum could spark a permeation of nervous energy around the Parc des Princes. Use the emotion of the occasion against the hosts, as Enrique's men did last week.
2. Maximise set-pieces
PSG are really good, and they're going to enjoy much of the game on home soil. Arsenal will have their moments, but sequences of sustained pressure are likely to be limited against a team which keeps the ball so well and aims to regain possession via intense man-orientation - a facilitator of rapid transitions as opposed to prolonged passing sequences.
The Gunners have got to be efficient in Paris. They must lean on Rice and Myles Lewis-Skelly to evade Parisian pressure and help them get up the pitch, and play for set-pieces when they venture into the final third.
Arsenal didn't score from a set piece last week, but PSG never looked particularly comfortable dealing with balls into their box. Gianluigi Donnarumma is no master of the high ball, and Nicolas Jover's clever routines almost worked a trick. Mikel Merino headed home from a free-kick, but the Spaniard was ruled half-a-yard offside by the semi-automated technology.
Can they craft a moment at 0-0 to restore parity in the tie? The first goal is pivotal here, and Arsenal need it more than their hosts.
3. Embrace Champions League chaos
You couldn't have watched what went down in Milan last night and believe this tie is over. Sure, Arsenal are down in the tie, without a couple of crucial cogs and facing up against a supreme opponent, but the latter stages of the Champions League relentlessly throw up the irrational.
Inter, so good in the first half, were down and out when Raphinha completed Barcelona's turnaround with just a couple of minutes remaining on Tuesday night. The Nerazzurri hadn't laid a glove on their visitors after the restart, yet they conjured up a moment from nothing to keep themselves alive. Francesco Acerbi's first-ever Champions League goal sent an all-time great contest to extra-time, and Interista Davide Frattesi thrust Simone Inzaghi's side to Munich.
The circumstances are different for Arsenal, who aren't playing in front of their home crowd on Wednesday, but they must've been inspired by events at San Siro.
Absolutely anything can happen, and, at some stage, Arteta must relax his obsession with control and embrace the unquantifiable. Momentum conquers all.
Such occasions can often render complex tactical thought irrelevant, with the high stakes and desperation involved igniting a stripping back of the sport to its purest form. Sometimes, lumping a big man up top is all it takes.