‘I don’t agree at all’ – Luis Enrique shuts down Mikel Arteta claim after PSG dump out Arsenal

PSG head coach Luis Enrique said he ‘didn’t agree at all’ with Mikel Arteta’s assessment that the best team lost after his side denied Arsenal a place in the Champions League final.

The Gunners, trailing 1-0 from the first leg, started confidently in Paris, but were once again thwarted by an inspired Gianluigi Donnarumma, who produced a series of world-class saves across the night.

After first denying Gabriel Martinelli, Donnarumma drew audible gasps from the Parc des Princes crowd as he kept out a driven Martin Odegaard strike through a sea of bodies with an astonishing stop.

Seemingly spurred on by the Italian’s goalkeeping heroics, PSG increased the deficit through Fabian Ruiz, who arrowed a deflected strike beyond David Raya to make it 2-0 on aggregate in the 27th minute.

And while Bukayo Saka cancelled out Achraf Hakimi’s 72nd-minute effort to give Arsenal a glimmer of hope, the hosts held firm to secure their place in this year’s final – where they will do battle with Inter Milan.

‘I don’t think there’s been a better team in the competition form what I’ve seen,’ Arsenal boss Arteta told TNT Sports shortly after the final whistle.

‘But we are out. We deserved much more but this competition is about the boxes, the strikers most of the time and the goalkeeper and theirs was the best player in both games.

‘I’m so proud of the boys, they deserve lots of credit for what they’re doing and the amount of injuries. We arrived here in the worst state.

‘You have to get here with everyone fit and available with lots of minutes. They had a week. We came here in a different context.

‘That gives me a lot of positivity for the future.’

Asked if he felt the best team had lost at his post-match press conference, the Spaniard told reporters: ‘Yes, and I am saying that because they [PSG] just told me that.

‘Today, I see how much my players wanted it because they were in tears.

‘We deserved much more. When you analyse both games, the MVP has been their goalkeeper.

‘The Champions League is decided in the boxes, and it’s won them the game. The result should have been very different. It gives me so much pride, but at the same time I’m so upset and so annoyed that we didn’t manage to do it.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Enrique took a different view to his fellow countryman and ‘great friend’, insisting his team were the deserved victors over the two legs.

When informed of Arteta’s comments, the PSG manager responded: ‘I don’t agree at all.

‘Arteta is a great friend, but I don’t agree completely. They played well. They played the way they wanted to.

‘We scored more goals than them. Arsenal played well, we suffered a lot.’

Enrique did, though, credit Arsenal with making PSG ‘suffer’, admitting Arteta ‘almost killed’ him with his tactics in the French capital.

‘I think it’s the game in which we suffered the most,’ he added.

‘We deserve to be in the final. They’re a great team too, but again, we scored more goals. In the second half, it was a different game. We could have scored more goals.

‘Mikel Arteta almost killed me. They managed to stretch every ball. The team shows they have a lot of talent. We managed the first half on the counter-attack.’

The Ligue 1 giants will now turn their attentions to what promises to be an intriguing contest against three-time European champions Inter Milan on May 31.

Barcelona had looked to be heading for this year’s final in Munich, with Hansi Flick’s men holding a one-goal lead over their Italian opposition at the San Siro on Tuesday evening.

But Francesco Acerbi had other ideas, forcing extra-time with a thunderous strike in the 93rd minute, before Davide Frattesi scored the decisive goal to send the Milan crowd into a frenzy.

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