By Nurudeen Obalola
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and the club’s star player Bukayo Saka have both been talking tough ahead of their UEFA Champions League tie against Real Madrid.
The Gunners host the European champions at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night in the first leg of their quarter-final tie, with the return leg scheduled for next week.
Arteta and Saka addressed a pre-match press conference on Monday, and both sounded confident of their chances against the record 15-time winners of the Champions League.
“Hundred per cent. It is a joy to prepare the game, to look at them just to look at the reaction of people and how we feel about ourselves coming into the game of that magnitude,” Arteta said when asked whether it is one of the biggest nights for him in management:
“The excitement around the club, the people, this is the stage we want to be, where Arsenal have to be consistently. We are very proud to be there and now we are very ready tomorrow to deliver.
“8pm tomorrow night, 11 players, 60,000 people, really super convinced that we are ready to win and to beat them. That’s the mindset that I want.
“The rest, be the team that we have been the last quarter of the season, with all the up and downs and things that we have to deal with, continue to do that because that’s our super strength.
“It is one of the most special things. It is a competition that we wait for many years, the fact we have only been twice at this stage in 15 years with the size of Arsenal Football Club says the difficulty of that and we are going to create our own story and go even further. Tomorrow is a beautiful opportunity to all of us.”
Arteta though conceded that Arsenal are up against a side that have consistently excelled on the biggest stages, with potent attackers like Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo available to cause damage.
“With the individual qualities that they have especially when you put them in certain situations, you know the danger you are facing,” the Spaniard admitted.
“That’s why consistently they have been doing what they’ve been doing in this competition. They can create those moments and when it comes to the biggest stage, individual performance play can decide the games, are critical for your success and it is something we have to prevent for sure.
“There are things that we cannot control – what they are going to prepare, what they can do – we have to focus and our energy has to be on that understanding our strengths, our weakness and the direction that we want to play in the game.”
On the importance of going to Madrid for the second leg with a lead, Arteta said: “Very important but it will be just the first leg so obviously the intention of the team is very clear, we want to achieve tomorrow and we are going to go for it.”
Saka, who only recently returned from a long-term injury, agreed when it was suggested that Tuesday might be the biggest night of his career.
“I think in an Arsenal shirt it probably will be, yes,” the England winger with Nigerian heritage said.
“As the players we’re ready and we’re up for it but I honestly have no doubts that the fans tomorrow are going to be up for it also and they’re going to help to create the most beautiful night that the Emirates has witnessed.
“It would mean a lot to us. It’s the first time the club has been in back-to-back Champions League quarter-finals for a while now, so tomorrow night we want to take the next step and try and get over the line.
“It’s Madrid, you have to respect that and accept what they’ve done in the history but tomorrow anything can happen, we can’t focus too much on that.”
When asked about the break he had due to injury, Saka said: “I think mentally it was really good for me. Obviously it was really tough for me initially to find out the extent of my injury, that I was going to have surgery.
“It was really tough for me to hear the news at first but once it was done and successful, I was just focused on coming back stronger and I had a lot of time.
“The past five years I’ve been playing game after game so it was the first proper break I’ve had. It was really good for me. I got to do a lot of things that I don’t normally do. It’s really nice to be back and I feel fresh mentally.
“It was tough for me; it came at a bad moment but I’m just focused now on the positives, and I couldn’t ask to come back at a better time of the season than now.”
While Real Madrid are by some distance the most successful club in the history of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League with 15 titles, Arsenal have never won the competition and last reached the final in 2006.
