Roy Keane and Ian Wright have offered verdicts on Arsenal's upcoming Champions League semi-final with Paris Saint-Germain. The Gunners are set to face Luis Enrique's side over two legs with a spot in the final against Barcelona or Inter Milan up for grabs.
The first clash will take place at Emirates Stadium next Tuesday with the Parc Des Princes hosting the second leg eight days later. In terms of both teams' preparation, Arsenal and PSG have each conceded late equalisers this week.
On Wednesday evening, Jean-Phillipe Mateta's goal saw Crystal Palace salvage a point while 24 hours earlier, Nantes scored late on to deny the Parisians an eleventh consecutive Ligue 1 victory.
Arsenal now have five days to fully prepare but PSG have another clash they must navigate before attention turns back onto Europe as they face Nice on Friday evening. Enrique has been rotating his players regularly in recent weeks with Ousmane Dembele, Achraf Hakimi and Willian Pacho all rested.
Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Mikel Merino are just some of the Arsenal players that have seen their minutes carefully managed with the semi-final in mind. As the Gunners' next game now is that first leg at home to PSG, theories and predictions have started with Wright and Keane offering one of those each.
Following on from the ex-Manchester United midfielder claiming that he expects to see Arsenal in the final against Barcelona, Wright, speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet, shared an optimistic theory for if his former side reach the final.
"You have to think that Arsenal can win the Champions League," he began. "PSG have beaten them before, but that was a different PSG – and Arsenal are different too. This is the semi-final.
"I saw that four teams have won the Champions League for the first time in Munich, and that will be either Arsenal or PSG. I got so sucked into that! It’s the stage of the competition where you are very nervous because it comes down to whether the players are ready to go for it now."
If it does end up being the Catalan giants in the final against Arsenal, as Keane predicts, given the attacking dominance displayed against PSV and Real Madrid, they will certainly fancy their chances as Hansi Flick's side are far from sound defensively.
