Declan Rice was the first player to front up to the media after Arsenal’s Champions League dream was crushed by Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes.
Here’s what he had to say when he spoke to TNT Sports…
On not taking advantage of a fast start…
It was such a dominant start. If we scored one of them chances, probably in the first 15-20 minutes, the game completely changes on his head. It’s the small margins in football, you know. Two mistakes from us, two goals for them, and with the chances we’d missed, it just felt like it wasn’t meant to be. We give it absolutely everything. In this competition, you’re either in or you’re out, and over the two legs, we could have scored three or four goals, but Donnarumma’s been unbelievable, and you’ve got to look at the small margins; it just wasn’t meant to be.
On where Arsenal go from here…
In life in general, I think sometimes you have to lose a few in order to win. You have to overcome some of these setbacks to mentally grow, and grow as a person, and as a player, and as a group, and I think going through that stage at the minute, after a few losses in tandem, losing out in the league, coming close in the Champions League, that’s about years. We’re growing as a team, as people, but we need to keep pushing and keep believing. This is why we play this sport. There’s going to be setbacks along the way.
PSG have obviously gone through tonight, we’re absolutely gutted, but this isn’t going to define us for sure. We’re going to be back when we get our players back. They’ve been out for a very long time, we’re going to be a much stronger outfit, so we’ve got to keep going.
On whether injuries cost Arsenal…
Yes, it’s tough. We’ve done the whole season without five or six of our best players, and to be where we are, and to do what we’ve done, has been unbelievable. I fully stand by that. In the end, the group of players that have gone out there, have given it absolutely everything. The whole squad has, even the players that flew over with us tonight, they’ve been injured, every staff member, everyone fully believed. I think you could see that from the first whistle, how much we believed we could win, and go out there and put on a performance. On another night, we maybe scored two or three tonight in that first 20 minutes. Then they score. We obviously had them chances, where we didn’t score, it was a real kick in the teeth. We’ll assess it when we’re back. Three games left, it’s been a really long season. We’ve really, really wanted this one. We’ll keep pushing, because this is why we play this sport. We want to win, and we want to do the best we can.
On what it’s like coming so close to a trophy again but ultimately missing out…
We’re all desperate for it. That’s why we play football, that’s why we play this game. We want to win trophies, we want to hit the pinnacle of football winning stuff. Like I said, for whatever reason, these last two years, the cup competitions in the Premier League, it hasn’t been meant to be. We’ve been really, really close. It’s obviously not good enough, because Arsenal are a club that deserves to be winning trophies, and deserves to be pushing. There’s not a lot more we can really be doing. Like I said, sometimes in life, you have to go through these small losses in order to win big. That’s what a lot of these big superstars have done in the past. They’ve all suffered defeats, but they then come out on top. I’m sure this group will, because it hurts. You see the boys in there, you see the manager. It’s tough. It’s the semi-final. We wanted to be in Munich, and it’s obviously not meant to be, but it doesn’t define us, like I said, and we’ll be back for sure.