Declan Rice surprised Real Madrid with two brilliant free kicks in the quarterfinals of Arsenal's Champions League at the Emirates and Thibaut Courtois has now offered his thoughts
Thibaut Courtois admits that he was the fault of the Arsenal Nightmare of Real Madrid after he had not dealt with two beautiful Declan Rice Free Kicks. The Gunners achieved a brilliant win in the first stage on the Emirates on Tuesday evening.
The midfielder Rice of England shot two excellent free kicks in the second half, with Mikel Merino extended the leaders even further. The side of Mikel Arteta now only has to avoid a defeat of three goals next week in the Bernabeu to seal their place in the semi -final.
After being beaten twice by Rice, real goalkeeper Courtois has now spoken and is of the opinion that he should bear the blame for those two goals – she has given it away every free kick.
“I thought I had placed the wall well,” Courtois told Movistar. “I usually put an extra man in it. I take responsibility for that, I could have placed an extra man, but I thought [Rice] Wouldn't get that much curl on it.
“And the second goal is a great goal. They were unnecessary mistakes, while there was no danger. Maybe we shouldn't make those mistakes.”
Rice's two efforts saw the worst fears of the Belgian keeper play. Courtois had already expressed his concern about how effective Arsenal was of set pieces, although he had chosen to concentrate more on corners instead of free kick-my own that came back to bite him.
Prior to the game, the ex-Chelsea star said: “We worked on it. We know how to try to defend themselves against them. The first is not to admit too many corners.
“It is a matter of concentration, activation – sometimes the quality of the opponent also plays a factor. When the ball arrives perfectly, it is difficult to defend. But we are ready to do it, we believe that what we have prepared will work well for us.”
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Rice's two free kicks had completely seen the Arsenal -midfielder the team orders. The set piece coach Nicolas Jover van de Gunners had told him to cross the ball, with rice that took matters into his own hands – a decision that turned out to be a brilliant call.
“We said to cross it,” Rice revealed. “If she [the defenders in the wall] were a bit more than we saw the space bukayo [Saka] Said if you feel it, go for it. I thought I would take this.
“If you score a goal, this is the best feeling in the world. It didn't make sense to cross the ball from that corner. It should be a delicate pass. And when I saw the wall. It was not logical to cross. You know what, I am glad I took it because it was magical.”
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