Arsenal’s Declan Rice insisted Tuesday the Gunners are confident they can “deliver something special” by overturning a 1-0 first-leg deficit when they face Paris Saint-Germain in the French capital in the return match of their Champions League semi-final tie.
“We’re here to win the game. We’re here to make a statement. We want to get to the final. So we need to be ready to go and do that,” Rice told reporters at the Parc des Princes on the eve of Wednesday’s showdown.
“We need to have big balls and we need to go out there on the biggest stage and show that we’re ready to play at this level.
“It’s going to be the biggest night in this club’s history if we can get to the final. So we’re fully ready to go.”
PSG hold the advantage coming into Wednesday’s match after Ousmane Dembele’s early goal gave them a narrow victory at the Emirates Stadium a week ago.
However, both Rice and Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta said they believed they could get the better of a side who have eliminated Premier League opposition in each of the last two rounds, knocking out Liverpool in the last 16 and Aston Villa in the quarter-finals.
“I think you need to have full belief,” Rice said.
“We certainly have that as a group. I think if we are the best versions of ourselves tomorrow night -– and we know we can be that –- there is no stopping us getting into that final.”
The England star said Arsenal could lean on the experience of facing reigning European champions Real Madrid in Spain in the last round, when Arteta’s team won 2-1 to progress 5-1 on aggregate.
“When we went to the Bernabeu the other week there were a lot of questions about whether we could rise to that occasion,” said Rice, who scored two wonderful free-kicks in the first leg of that tie.
“We obviously had a 3-0 lead but there was still so much talk about them coming back and playing at the Bernabeu and we had not experienced that before.
“But I think as a group we handled that amazingly well. We have proved that we can handle big situations and tomorrow night is another massive step for this team.”
Discussion about this post