A SECRET WEAPON

no idea Rice had that kind of magic and It's the first time I've seen him take a good and he did it TWICE!

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DECLAN RICE'S ability to bend it like Beckham was such a secret weapon even his Arsenal team-mates didn't know about it.

As Arsenal basked in the acclaim after the Champions League rout that stunned football, England midfielder Rice's identikit free-kicks - whipped round an inadequate Real Madrid wall - were the crowning glory on the Gunners' greatest night at the Emirates.

But defender William Saliba, who shackled the world's most coveted striker Kylian Mbappe (far right, on his backside) revealed it was not even a keynote of Arsenal's game plan.

For all the 15-times European Cup winners' bravado and trash talk, the Gunners are favourites to reach the semi-finals after their 3-0 demolition of Real in the first leg.

And Saliba revealed: "We don't score a lot of direct free-kicks and he scored two in a game like this.

"We are so proud of him and we hope he will score again. We are so proud of him because he was amazing.