Arsenal's dominant defence has carried them to the Champions League final - now the real test awaits in Budapest: Winners and losers as Gunners get the job done while Antoine Griezmann and Atletico Madrid bow out with barely a whimper

Diego Simeone has been repeatedly linked with the most high-profile managerial vacancies in England - but we've reached a stage where it's hard to figure out which Premier League club would actually consider hiring the Argentine. Chelsea, maybe? To bring some much-needed order to a club in a constant state of chaos. But there's absolutely no way that Manchester United, Manchester City or Liverpool will be looking at Simeone.

He's the highest-paid manager in the world and he's been seriously backed in the transfer market over the past two summers - and yet Atleti are now set to finish without any silverware for the fifth consecutive season after two terribly blunt displays against Arsenal.

Nobody can question the enormity of what Simeone has achieved at Atletico. He took a club in total disarray and transformed them into two-time champions of Spain, while at the same time reaching the Champions League final twice between 2014 and 2016. What he did back then was truly historic.

However, Simeone now looks like a manager caught in two minds. He's tried to add another dimension to his side's attacking game over the past few years, but without any tangible success, and it’s resulted in him losing his Midas touch from a defensive perspective - as underlined by the fact that only Qarabag conceded more goals in this season's Champions League than Atletico.

Sad as it is to say, a parting of the ways might be for the best for both Simeone and Atletico. Just don't expect him to be hired by a team with a tradition of free-flowing football - because it really doesn’t look like he has it in him.

Mikel Arteta is something of a modern-day Simeone. He never stops ranting and raving on the touchline and has created a cynical side with a win-at-all-costs mentality that nobody wants to play - or watch.

In that sense, Arsenal 2025-26 aren't really that different from Atletico 2013-14 - at least not from a basic tactical perspective. Simeone obviously didn't benefit from anything like the same level of financial support as Arteta, so his side were much more reliant on counter-attacks and dominating without the ball, as Koke once put it.

What unites the two coaches, though, is a total disregard for the opinion of others. Arteta has already stated several times that he doesn't give a damn about the criticism his side has copped this season - and why should he? In his head, the end justifies the means and, right now, Arsenal are top of the Premier League and back in the Champions League final for the first time in 20 years. Do you really think any supporter lucky enough to have been at the Emirates on Tuesday will care how they got there?

The fans put their faith in Arteta’s process and could be rewarded for doing so in the most remarkable manner possible with not one but two major trophies in the space of four weeks.

There will be no fairy-tale farewell for Antoine Griezmann in Budapest. The Frenchman will leave Atletico Madrid - and indeed European football - without ever having got his hands on the Champions League.

In fairness, his best chance to do so passed him by a decade ago, when the Rojiblancos were beaten on penalties by city rivals Real Madrid in the 2016 final in Milan, but Griezmann will have plenty of regrets after Atleti's elimination at the hands of Arsenal - and particularly in terms of the first leg.

He went close to scoring several times at the Metropolitano, most notably when his ingenious, off-balance effort clipped the crossbar. Unfortunately for one of the finest footballers of the modern era, he barely got a look-in at the Emirates.

With his tremendous technique and awesome awareness, Griezmann was central to Atleti's most promising first-half moves, but he was hauled off after 66 minutes with his team desperately seeking some of the creativity and cutting edge for which Griezmann made his name.

It was a sad end to an elite-level club career that never yielded the European Cup or league title his talent truly deserved.

Saka clearly isn't fully fit. He’d only made his return from injury as a second-half substitute in last week's first leg in Madrid before he played just 45 minutes of Saturday's Premier League win over Fulham. However, Saka showed during a fantastic first-half performance against the Cottagers precisely why Arteta was always going to start him against Atleti.

Even when he's not 100 percent, he makes such an enormous difference to Arsenal's attack. He’s their ‘Starboy’, an utterly fearless forward who terrifies the life out of opponents.

Saka also loves playing at the Emirates - and particularly on big European nights. He went into this game having been directly involved in 13 goals in his previous 13 Champions League home games. Consequently, nobody was in the least bit surprised when Saka pounced on a loose ball in the area to send Arsenal through to the final.

As Arteta told Amazon Prime, "It had to be someone very special and certainly he is very special with me and the boys and everyone attached with this club. If it had to be someone scoring that goal, it probably had to be him."

Atletico have got some big decisions to make this summer, and the first obviously centres around the manager. But they've also got to figure out who they're going to get to replace Julian Alvarez up front - because what little chance they had of holding onto their star striker has now gone.

The Argentina international is a genuinely world-class No.9 and there aren't many of those around at the moment, which is why Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and several top English teams are so keen to sign Alvarez this summer. Alvarez is clearly keen to leave Atleti, too - and one can hardly blame him, given the shocking lack of service he received at the Emirates.

Maybe things would have been different had he not picked up a knock in the first leg that put his participation in doubt, but even if he'd been firing on all cylinders, it's unlikely that he'd have been able to make a decisive contribution at the Emirates.

The World Cup winner got one touch in the Arsenal box and had just 29 overall - which was still more than the awful Ademola Lookman and the wasteful Giuliano Simeone.

Some Atleti supporters have been less than impressed with Alvarez's attitude this season, but the cold, hard truth is that he's too good for this painfully average Atletico team and his desire to depart will only have intensified after being forced to be a part of such an insipid attacking display.

Former England striker Alan Shearer said this "wasn't a vintage Arsenal performance" - but it was. This is very much who they are: a dogged, determined and well-drilled team that is incredibly difficult to break down.

The stats don't lie: Arsenal haven't lost any of their 14 games in this season's Champions League - and that's primarily because they kept a clean sheet in nine of them. So, at a time when neutrals all over the world are rightly marvelling at the all-out attacking play of PSG and Bayern Munich, Arsenal's progression to the Champions League final is very much a victory for defence-first football.

Whether you think that's a good thing or not depends on your own personal perception of 'The Beautiful Game' - but what we can say is that the final will definitely make for a fascinating clash of styles.