Declan Rice’s words didn’t carry much weight with Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney felt that the words Declan Rice uttered to his Arsenal team-mates before their clash with Paris Saint-Germain suggested that the Gunners didn’t know what the game was going to entail.
Arsenal entertained PSG in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday night, with home supporters hoping that the Gunners could follow up their stunning quarter-final triumph over Real Madrid and reach the final. Rice was superb in both legs of that tie, winning man of the match in both and scoring two brilliant free-kicks in the home leg.
The England midfielder was back in the side on Tuesday evening, and could be seen attempting to inspire his team-mates in the warm-up.
As the Amazon Prime Video cameras cut to Rice, he could be seen saying: “If we don’t have the ball, we die,” to which the former Arsenal winger Theo Walcott, working on punditry duty, said: “You see it all there. That just shows the leadership quality we’ve been talking about. He knows how important it is to starve PSG of the ball.”
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However, Manchester United and England legend Rooney felt that such words were a little naive, as PSG’s quality means that they are always going to dominate the ball regardless of what Arsenal did.
Rooney said: “I understand what Declan’s saying there, but Arsenal have to understand there are going to be large periods of this game and next week’s game where they’re not going to have the ball.
“They have to make sure they are focused when they don’t have the ball. Stay together, stay compact and take advantage when they have it.”
Ousmane Dembele fired PSG in front insode three minutes(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
In the event the Gunners made a nightmare start when Khvicha Kvaratshkelia’s ball from the left hand side was smashed in by Ousmane Dembele after just four minutes, with the effort finding the net off the post.
The visitors would go on the dominate the ball for much of the first half, with David Raya having to be at his best to keep out a Desire Doue effort, before the Gunners grew into the game in the remainder of the first period.
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