‘We have to have belief’: Arsene Wenger backs Arsenal to create history against Monaco

Arsene Wenger believes that Arsenal have the form to outclass Monaco on Tuesday and reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League as the only English side left in the competition.

Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal have the ability to defeat Monaco and progress to the Champions League quarter-finals. David Klein / AP Images

Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal have the form to outclass Monaco on Tuesday and reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Arsenal slumped to a shock 3-1 loss to Monaco at the Emirates in the first leg, but since then they have impressed with a 2-1 FA Cup win at Manchester United and a 3-0 trouncing of West Ham on Saturday.

Goals from Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini in the London derby kept Arsenal in third place, seven points behind Chelsea in the league, albeit with the leaders having one game in hand.

The manner of the recent victories gave Wenger hope that he can celebrate his return to Monaco, where he made his managerial reputation as coach from 1987-94, with a victory.

“We now go to Monaco, come out of a big week, played at Manchester United, played today a derby. We have a little belief,” he said after the West Ham win.

“If you have no belief, you have no chance. We have to have belief and give everything.”

To get past Monaco, Arsenal will have to do what no other side has managed in the Uefa Champions League era – win having gone into an away tie needing to score more than once to avoid elimination.

Only twice have teams come back from a home first-leg loss in the Uefa Champions League, and both were beaten 1-0 first time out: Ajax over Panathinaikos in the 1995/96 semi-finals and Inter Milan over Bayern Munich, in the 2010/11 round of 16. .

Wenger’s upbeat comments, however, were echoed by Welsh midfielder Ramsey, who is back to near his top form after returning from a third hamstring injury of the season.

“We need to score goals. So we will go there and try to score three or more goals and hopefully not concede any. That’s our target and that’s how we will approach it,” said Ramsey, who missed the first leg.

“We had a sloppy first leg and we’ve made it quite difficult for ourselves but it’s not over yet. We are more than capable of scoring three goals. We’ll go into the game believing we can achieve that.”

Monaco also go into the last-16 tie with a good win behind them, having thumped Bastia 3-0 at home on Friday.

That win left them in fourth place in Ligue 1, behind Lyon, Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille with 10 games left in the season.

Portuguese midfielder Joao Moutinho has been instrumental in recent successes and he believes that the Champions League format suits Monaco better than the stuffiness of Ligue 1 play.

“We can show our best qualities against the top teams,” he said.

“Play in the L1 is very closed, very aggressive. Some teams are good technically, but others rely on the physical side, on defending and counter-attacks. It’s hard to find spaces and you have to come up with different tactics to get the wins.

“No one believed in us and yet we have really played well,” he said of their Champions League run. “We deserve to be where we are.

“I have full confidence in our side, despite our lack of experience. With the team spirit we have we can go even further and why not a repeat of Monaco and Porto in 2004?”

That was a reference to the last time that Monaco made it past the last-16 stage in the Champions League. With Didier Deschamps as coach, they went to the final on that occasion before losing to a Porto side managed by Jose Mourinho.

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