MIKEL ARTETA has claimed Arsenal were the best team in the Champions League and they are “better” than PSG despite losing.
The Gunners crashed out in the semi-final 3-1 on aggregate and were left to rue missed opportunities.
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PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a string of vital saves, while Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka missed huge chances to score.
Asked for his thoughts post-match, a gutted Arteta said: “Well, first of all, congratulations to PSG for reaching the final.
“The assessment, I will make it when I’m a little bit cooler, but the feedback that I got is straight away from their bench is that we were much better than them.
“When you look at the two games, who’s been their best player on the pitch, the goalkeeper. He’s made a difference for them in the tie.
“I think we were very close, much closer than the results showed, but unfortunately we are out.
“I’m very proud of the players, what we’ve done today, the way we started, how we handle the pressure, the amount of pressure after 20 minutes it should be 3-0.
“But there is something extra that you need in the competition to go your way and it didn’t.
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.
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“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.”
Arteta continued: “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.”
Rice was as equally disappointed, adding: “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.
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“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.
“We’ve given it everything. 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.
“We really wanted this one, but we will keep pushing. We’re all desperate for it, that’s why we play football. We want to win trophies, but for whatever reason these last two years, it hasn’t been meant to be.
“We’ve come really close, it’s not good enough, Arsenal deserve to be winning trophies.
“It hurts, the boys and the manager, it’s tough. It’s a semi-final, we wanted to be in Munich.”
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