An emotional Mikel Arteta has insisted Arsenal have been the best team in the Champions League this season, revealing that their semi-final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain left his players in tears. Arsenal’s aspirations of silverware were dashed with a 2-1 defeat at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday, after being swept aside by Liverpool in the Premier League title battle.
Arsenal were already down by one goal in their second-leg contest in the French capital, and despite forcing goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma into two superb saves inside the opening 15 minutes, they fell further behind when Fabian Ruiz opened the score after 27 minutes.
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Achraf Hakimi sealed the game in the second half, with Bukayo Saka scoring only as a consolation in a 3-1 aggregate loss.
However, Arsenal manager Arteta, whose side had lost the first leg 1-0, told TNT Sports: “I don’t think there has been a better team in the competition so far from what I have seen, but we are out.”
Later, when asked if he thought the best team had lost, he replied: “Yes, and I’m saying that because they (PSG) just told me that.” Today, I realized how much my players desired it because they were in tears.
“We deserved a lot more.” When you look at both games, the MVP (Most Valuable Player) was their goalkeeper.
And they could slip 18 points behind Liverpool if they lose Sunday’s big encounter between the teams at Anfield.
Liverpool were crowned this season’s champions after a 5-1 victory against Tottenham on April 27 that took their points for the season up to 82.
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