William Saliba has said Paris Saint-Germaine (PSG) were scary last year and are still a scary side this said.
The 25-year-old is no stranger to the French champions, having faced them in last season’s semi-finals, shared a dressing room with several of their players in the French national team set-up, and spent four years of his career in France.
Speaking at Arsenal’s dedicated media day (Vavel), Saliba admitted PSG deserved their status as favourites.
“It is normal that they [PSG] are the favourites because they won the Champions League last season, and now they are in the final again. We have to fight and if we want to change that, we need to win.
“They have a great attack. I know them because I play with them for the national team and we played against them last season,” he explained.
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“We know if we want to win against them we have to be at our best next Saturday because they are so, so good.
“They were scary last year, and they’re still scary this year,” he added. “Nothing has changed. We know that if we want to beat them, we have to be 100%.”
Reflecting on becoming Premier League champions on Tuesday night, Saliba pinpointed the win against Everton as the point where he believed that the Gunners would go on to win the league.
“We started the season well, but you know the Premier League is long. I started to feel we could do it in March. After the game against Everton, it was clear to me that we would win the league.
“When we came back from the national team it was a bit hard. But we kept going, we believed in ourselves, even after the loss against [Manchester] City, and now we are champions.”
Asked whether he relishes the opportunity to face the likes of Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who have led a PSG attack that scored 74 goals in Ligue 1 this season, Saliba replied: “Of course. We have the best defence this season.
“When you are the best, you want to play the best so we are so happy to have attackers like this to play against us next Saturday and I hope we will win that battle.”
