Ousmane Dembele praises ‘excellent’ Arsenal ahead of UCL final | OneFootball

PSG star Ousmane Dembele has lauded ‘excellent’ Arsenal ahead of the Champions League final between the two sides.

PSG won last year’s UCL by beating Inter Milan 5-0 and this will be their third Champions League final in the last six years.

Arsenal by contrast haven’t been in a Champions League final for 20 years, since they lost 2-1 against Barcelona in 2006.

But they are riding a high after winning the Premier League, and Dembele said it was well deserved. “Arsenal are an excellent team. They ran away with the Premier League title and also what they showed us in the group stages in the Champions League.

“They deserve to be in the final and deserved to win the Premier League. Great team, great players. An exceptional coach who has been working at it for four or five years now and he deserved to win the Premier League title and to be in the Champions League final.”

There had been some injury concerns over Dembele after he was forced off in the 27th minute of PSG’s final league game against Paris FC, but the Frenchman confirmed he is fully fit.

“I wasn’t scared about missing the final. I had 10-15 days to get myself in shape for the final. We don’t have a lot of down time but the coaches and staff kept across everything. Hopefully things go well tomorrow.

“We’re on a high but still very focused. We have incredible staff and players. We are all quite calm. We know we can win these games. We’re in it to win it and if we want to be great players, we need to win these trophies time and time again.”