Unlucky defeat is ‘kick in teeth’ says Rice
Declan Rice was stunned Arsenal crashed out.
He said: “It’s gutting. Such a dominant start. If you score one of them chances, the game changes on its head.
“It’s the small margins, two mistakes from us and two goals from them.
“It felt like it wasn’t meant to be. Over the two legs we could have scored three or four goals, their goalkeeper has been unbelievable.
“In life, you have to lose a few in order to win. You have to overcome some of these setbacks to grow. We’re growing as a team, we need to keep pushing.
“PSG have gone through but this isn’t going to define us.
“When we get our players back we’re going to be a much stronger outfit. We’ve done the whole season without five or six of our best players.”
“Everyone fully believed, you could see that from the first whistle, on another night we maybe score two or three. We had the chances we didn’t score and it was a real kick in the teeth.”
PSG boss defiant
Luis Enrique praised “great team” Arsenal – but claims PSG could easily have won by more.
The French giants won the Champions League semi-final first leg 1-0 before last night’s 2-1 success in Paris for a 3-1 aggregate triumph.
The PSG boss said: “They are a great team, but… we scored more goals.
“We played in a great way in the first leg, and the second half of the second leg was a different match, and we could have scored even more goals.”
Mikel ‘upset’ by exit
Mikel Arteta couldn’t contain his frustration at missing out on the Champions League final.
The Arsenal chief said: “I’m upset. We were very close for long periods of both games. We were much better than them.
“But we are not there and that has to hurt and if we want to win this competition and go there we need to realise that and there are certain things that are on us.
“You shouldn’t be just understanding that we are out. It’s not the way I look at it.”
‘Keeper made the difference’
Mikel Arteta believes keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was the main reason PSG KO’d his Gunners.
Quizzed on whether his team are progressing, Arteta replied: “100 per cent, I don’t think there has been a better team in the competition so far.
“But we are out tonight and we deserve much more in both games.
“But this competition is about the boxes, the strikers and a goalkeeper, who was their best player in both games.”