Can Arsenal walk the walk in Paris?

Defiant Merino insists Gunners have quality and mentality to turn tie against polished PSG side on its head

- David Hytner

The fighting talk comes as standard. Arsenal are down after Tuesday night's 1-0 home defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semi-final first leg - but not out.

"This team... you can never give up on us," Mikel Merino says. "Because I think we proved that we are always going to fight until the end. We have the technical quality and most important we have the motivation to go to the second leg and win this for our fans and for ourselves."

Inevitably, the 2-1 victory over Real Madrid at the Bernabéu in the second leg of the previous round has been mentioned, even if the context was different; Arsenal were 3-0 up from the first leg. If you can win at the Bernabéu, you can win anywhere, is the gist of the message from the Arsenal dressing room.

And, no matter what, this team always travel to win.

"Three-up or one-down... it changes nothing," Merino says. "The mentality of this team is always going to win. Paris is a tough place to go but we have proved that we can compete against anybody and with all due respect to anybody, I think we are going to win the second leg."

After Arsenal's first-leg win over Madrid, there was some talk, ridiculous as it sounds - and born mainly of nerves and yearning - that 3-0 was somehow a dangerous scoreline. No such issue now; the handbrake is not an option. Arsenal can simply play in Paris. They have nothing to lose.

It is the kind of thought that percolates after a game as seismic and emotional as that on Tuesday and the hunt for positives from an Arsenal point of view is very much on before Wednesday's second leg.