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'Most open Champions League in years'

Arsene Wenger was in expansive mood on Tuesday ahead of our crucial Champions League Group A game against Paris Saint Germain.

The manager was asked whether English clubs were making progress in Europe, how confident he is in Arsenal chances and more.

This is what he had to say:

on how important it is to finish top of Group A…
I read this morning that Real Madrid are not sure whether it’s good to finish first or second! The problem is that if you finish second and get a bad draw, everybody says, ‘that’s your fault’. You want to finish first, knowing that. Is there an actual difference? I don’t know in a group of Real Madrid or Dortmund. The other groups might look at ours and think, ‘Paris Saint Germain or Arsenal - who is better? I don't know’.

But we want to finish first because we want to win the game. I think more than speculating, it’s more important for us to do the job. When you play at home against a big team, you want to win. When I tell you that we have been a bit stuttering recently, we played Tottenham, were 1-0 up and didn’t win the game, so we need to show that we can do that.

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on it sending a statement…
I spoke about it with my staff just before I came here. It’s fascinating to me, looking across Europe, that you have all the players away, they come back and they all have big games. AC Milan-Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid-Real Madrid, Dortmund-Bayern, Man United-Arsenal. Players come back, they travel next morning, they play on Saturday morning, I don’t complain because it’s the same for Man United, but it’s not ideal.

on whether they should have help with fixtures…
It’s difficult. In England, you put all the games in a computer and you have so many different things like Arsenal can’t play at home on the same day as Tottenham. It’s very difficult to complain. It’s not ideal but we have to adapt.

on whether English clubs are closer to top teams…
I feel that, yes. For example, Man City winning against Barcelona. We have an opportunity to show it against Paris Saint Germain. But before the Champions League game was the one you had to prepare for. Today, the Premier League game is the game you have to prepare for. Everywhere you go, the difference in the Champions League is that the teams all play football. In the Premier League, even if you have 80 per cent possession, you can still lose the game. The pressure on the Premier League games is today massive.

on motivation for the PSG game…
I think we want to show that we can beat any style of team. That’s what we have done since the start of the season. We play a team with a different style, a team who play possession, slow and quick. We have to show that we can cope with that because they play a lot of possession and then suddenly they play quick with Cavani, Lucas Moura, they can accelerate a game. We have to show we can deal with that style, a different style to what we are used to. In England, we always play with power.

on whether PSG have an advantage because PL so intense…
I don’t know. PSG has an advantage as they can manage their games. They played against Nantes and played at 80 per cent, 90 per cent. We played at Man United and we had no room for one per cent [less].

on facing tough teams in the last-16…
Monaco aside and we failed against Monaco and that is why I never forget that. But I don’t know. I feel guilty when we finish second and have a difficult tie. Let’s finish first and at least we have the advantage to play the second game at home. Hopefully we will be injury free and have everyone available.

on whether Arsenal are ready to compete in Europe…
I think we are.

on whether it’s the most open Champions League in years…
Yes. I must say that I watched Real Madrid against Atletico Madrid on Saturday and I was impressed by them. They looked at the moment to be the most dangerous side.

on English clubs not being far away from Real, Barcelona and Bayern Munich…
No.

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