Bullish Declan Rice hits back at jibe from Man Utd legend | OneFootball

Declan Rice bluntly rejected Wayne Rooney's claim that Arsenal have a "psychological fear" of winning trophies and struck a bullish tone ahead of Wednesday's Champions League semi-final second leg against Paris Saint-Germain.

Rice couldn't help Arsenal avoid a 1-0 defeat at the Emirates last week. After starring in a 5-1 aggregate triumph over defending champions Real Madrid in the quarter-finals, the English midfielder struggled to replicate his all-action heroics as the hosts were comfortably beaten.

Manchester United icon Rooney questioned the mentality of Mikel Arteta's squad after the first-leg reverse. "There is a psychological fear of not getting over the lines," the former England striker said in his capacity as an Amazon Prime Video pundit last week.

"I think there is a fear! A hurdle they have to get over. They ran Man City and Liverpool close but you need to be successful on the journey and I don't think they are making those steps. Arsenal are used to getting to a certain stage of the season and things fall away. I am telling the truth."

When these comments were put to Rice ahead of Wednesday's decisive tie in the French capital, he firmly disagreed, pointing towards Arsenal 2-0 victory over PSG in October. "It was the same team other than [Ousmane] Dembele and [Khvicha] Kvaratskhelia. Everyone else started and we beat them," Rice pointed out. "So there's no fear.

"I think the goal inside three minutes probably shocked us a little bit, shocked the atmosphere a little bit. But once we found a foothold in the game again, we started creating chances. The goalkeeper made some amazing saves. We fully believed that we could beat them. Obviously it wasn't meant to be, but we've seen enough and we know enough as a team that we can do something really, really good."

Bukayo Saka was even more confident than his teammate. "It's far from over," the English winger told Sky Sports. "I think it's important to stay calm, but obviously we know we have another level to go and I think we're going to show it in Paris, and I'm confident we can turn it around."