Arteta on ‘outstanding’ Eze and ‘immense’ Rice | Quotes | News

We made it through to the last eight of the Champions League thanks to a convincing 3-1 aggregate win over Bayer Leverkusen, and manager Mikel Arteta highlighted the performance of both goalscorers in the second leg.

Eberechi Eze continued his excellent recent form with his first ever Champions League goal in the first half – a rocket from outside the area – before Declan Rice capped a player of the match display with a cracking goal of his own in the second half.

And the winning margin could have been even greater, the boss said afterwards. “I’m very happy with the performance and the manner that we handled the game emotionally because in the first half we put so much into it.

“It should have been two or three, the keeper kept them in the game and then we needed a magic moment from Ebs to score an outstanding goal and decide to lead the way to the quarter-finals. We’ve seen in training a lot of actions like this but at the end he’s here to deliver those moments when it matters and it matters like today. He’s growing, I think he’s now starting to show what he’s capable of and now we just need consistency from him.”

Rice’s goal was also a fine strike, which typified his performance on the night. “I think he was immense today,” Arteta said. “The performance that he put in, considering the amount of games and minutes that he’s playing in, I think he was outstanding. He really led the team in various ways and it’s a joy to have him and today he was decisive again.”

It’s only the second time in history we have made it to the last eight of the Champions League in three successive seasons – the first was between 2008 and 2010 – and we have now made it to the quarter final stage eight times in our history.

“It’s really difficult to achieve that,” Arteta said, so the players deserve a lot of credit for that and especially with the schedule that we have now in the Premier League and all the competitions. I think it’s a context that is very, very, very difficult, but I’m very pleased and I think we deserve to be there.”

So with the quarter-final against Sporting to look forward, we now switch attentions to Wembley, and the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City. So what does the rest of the week look like as we build up to that game?

“First enjoy tonight,” Arteta said, have a nice dinner and tomorrow we start to prepare the game against City at Wembley with a big enthusiasm and positivity to want to achieve the first goal of the season.

“We need Emirates Stadium at Wembley. So, everybody has to turn up and bring their energy, their belief and the conviction that we’re going to do it.”