William Saliba admits Arsenal struggled to deal with Ousmane Dembele during their 1-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain within the Champions League.
Dembele’s early goal on the Emirates Stadium sealed PSG’s victory in the primary leg of their Champions League semi-final tie on Tuesday night.
Arsenal had two good probabilities to equalise through Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard but were denied by a superb performance from PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
PSG also had opportunities to increase their advantage ahead of the second leg within the French capital next Wednesday with Bradley Barcola and Goncalo Ramos each going close.
But Saliba concedes that Dembele, who’s a doubt for the second leg as a consequence of a hamstring injury, was the PSG player who continually caused Arsenal problems.
Get personalised updates on Arsenal on a regular basis
Get up to seek out news in your club in your inbox every morning with Metro’s Football Newsletter.
Enroll to our newsletter after which select your team within the link we’ll send you so we will get football news tailored to you.
‘We’re somewhat dissatisfied to have lost and to have conceded a goal very early on,’ Saliba told Canal Plus.
‘We made up for it somewhat after that, but we suffered rather a lot in the primary 20 minutes. We played higher within the second half.
‘The tie isn’t over, we hope to win on the Parc des Princes. We weren’t surprised by PSG, we knew they were a robust team.
‘We got eaten somewhat in the beginning, we played badly. We must not surrender, a whole lot of things can occur.
‘Dembele is in all places, he’s moving around rather a lot. It’s difficult to mark him.
‘We will do higher with the primary goal. We’ll take the positives and go beat them there. We’ll have to indicate that we have now character.’
Meanwhile, Vitinha, who gave his Player of the Match award to Donnarumma after PSG’s win, has warned his teammates that Arsenal are still fully within the tie ahead of next week’s second leg on the Parc des Princes.
‘It’s very difficult to come back and win here, we saw that in October. We played an amazing game, even when we didn’t have the ball like usual,’ the midfielder said.
‘That’s what great teams show. We’ve got to adapt. We couldn’t have scored more, but we’re comfortable with the result. We were sure we could put in a performance like this.
‘There are individuals who don’t imagine it, but we don’t care. The fans are incredible. We’re all working together.
‘It’s not over, we have now to play an amazing game on the Parc des Princes. No, it’s not personal revenge. It’s the team. We put in an amazing collective performance, we showed our desire to go to the ultimate.’
For more stories like this, check our sport page.
Follow Metro Sport for the most recent news on
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
MORE: Mikel Merino sends message to PSG ahead of Arsenal’s Champions League second leg
MORE: Man Utd legend Gary Neville ‘snapped’ at ‘abusive’ Liverpool fans after title win
MORE: It’s crunch time for Tottenham, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest as they chase Champions League football
