Declan Rice praised Brentford for their performance against Arsenal, in Thursday’s 1-1 draw.
Arsenal missed the opportunity to extend their Premier League lead to six points as Brentford held them to give Manchester City hope in the title race.
Noni Madueke headed the leaders in front on the hour mark, but the Brentford levelled through Keane Lewis-Potter.
Arsenal’s lead at the top of the table now stands at four points as they target a first league title in 22 years. But Mikel Arteta’s men still have to travel to second-placed City in the remaining 12 games of the season.
Giving his views on the performance of Brentford, Rice said after the tough clash:”The game was split into different halves. It was their first 20 minutes; we ended the first half strong; we started the second half amazingly well; and they ended the half better than us. We suffocated a lot after the goal.
“In this journey, you are never going to be at the level for 70 games of the season, but you have to be at the best you can. The small details, the basics, like I say, this is a rollercoaster of a season. You can’t be naive to think this is going to be easy. We are playing against the best teams week in, week out. We have to keep pushing and believing in ourselves, controlling the controllable.
“We have to block out the outside noise. We have done that really well. People are going to talk up the title race and Arsenal, but we have a really calm group. I’m not naive to think Brentford are a pushover. They are one of the best teams in the league and their recent form shows that. It’s a point gained in our journey, but we wanted to win the game.”
