Mikel Arteta said Arsenal will have time to reflect on the positives in their season but admitted nothing could take the pain away after their Champions League final defeat.

Arsenal ended their 22-year wait for the Premier League trophy this season, but they fell just short in their attempts to win a first Champions League title at Puskas Arena.

The Gunners drew 1-1 with Paris Saint-Germain after 120 minutes, with Kai Havertz's early opener cancelled out by an Ousmane Dembele penalty in the second half.

However, in the shoot-out, Gabriel Magalhaes missed the crucial spot-kick, sending his effort way over the crossbar to secure a 4-3 win for PSG, who became just the second team to win back-to-back Champions League titles.

Arsenal remain the team with the most games in European Cup/Champions League history to never lift the trophy (226), while they also became the only side to have missed the goalframe with two penalties in a final penalty shoot-out, with Eberechi Eze also skewing off-target.

Arteta's side headed into the final as the only unbeaten side in the competition this term, and he noted that only made the narrow defeat harder to take.

"It is very tough to accept when you are so consistent in the competition all the way to the final, and in the end, you lose the trophy on penalty kicks, so it is a difficult one," he told TNT Sports.

"We haven't done it for 20 years [reached the Champions League final], so imagine the second time in our history that we have done it, and we need to recognise the season we had, but at the moment nobody is going to take the pain away from you.

"They [PSG] are a superb team, and I congratulate them. [The] individual quality they have, the manner they are coached, they are a top, top team. You have to go through the emotions, and if you're in pain, then go through the pain.

"Think you could do something else, then learn from it. Reflect on that and show the ambition that we want to have again."

Arsenal's starting XI for this game had played a combined 21,458 league minutes for the Gunners in 2025-26, which was 6,081 more than PSG's starters combined for in Ligue 1 this term (15,377).

Arteta's side ended their run of three consecutive years as runners-up in the Premier League, marking their first trophy under the Spaniard since their FA Cup triumph in 2020.

They also reached two finals, with Saturday's loss to PSG adding to a defeat to Manchester City in the EFL Cup, but Arteta was full of praise for the work Arsenal have done this term.

"I am so proud of them, with this season we have had under the circumstances," he added.

"Internally, we know what we have been through.

"It is just a privilege to manage this group of players and this team the way they carry this badge and how much they put into it. We got a big one [Premier League] and missed out on the biggest one."