De Bruyne makes massive Arsenal claim after Champions League defeat
Kevin De Bruyne made a huge Arsenal claim after his Napoli side lost to the Gunners in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Arsenal had 26 shots to the hosts’ five and racked up an xG of 4.05 on a night on which their finishing let them down.
Viktor Gyokeres was handed his first start of the season and failed to stake his claim for a spot in the starting XI and Arsenal once again needed their in-form captain, Martin Odegaard, to secure them three points.
Despite their profligacy, manager Mikel Arteta was delighted with the performance of his side.
Arteta said: “I’m very, very happy. A really tough place to come and a really different environment to play football – a beautiful one, by the way – against a really good team.
“I love the way we attacked the game, the way we competed, the hunger that we showed, the desire to dominate, to come here, to own the pitch, and the quality that we showed against a team that it’s so difficult to create chances against.
“We created a huge amount of them and the result doesn’t reflect what we saw on the pitch.
“The players were immense, and to play with that personality, with that conviction and with that quality in the Champions League away from home, it’s something that I’m extremely pleased about.”
READ: Gyokeres blows huge Arsenal chance with nine-touch nightmare at Napoli
Best in the world?
De Bruyne was similarly impressed and made a surprise admission when it was put to him by a CBS Sports reporter that “your opponent is maybe the best team in the world right now?”
De Bruyne responded: “I agree, they are the champions of England and they lost the last Champions League final on penalties so we know how strong they are.
“I think we actually did a good job, when we tried to play we had some moments where we created, of course we had to stay low sometimes and in the second half we gave them a little bit too much, we were too deep.
“But after that we had moments again, it’s an improvement for me from what I saw in the first few games. We’re starting to play better so that’s a good thing.”
