Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has made the bold claim that the Gunners are now the equals of Catalan giants Barcelona. The rivals meet in the first leg of their Champions League tie at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night in a repeat of last season's quarter-final.
Arsenal were humbled 6-3 on aggregate, losing 4-1 at the Nou Camp with the gulf in class clearly evident.
But the Frenchman now insists that over the last 12 months the Gunners have been transformed.
"We don't deny the quality of Barcelona, but what is important for us is we have a good opportunity to show who we are now," he said.
"Not only that, we also want to show Barcelona we are capable of knocking them out.
"We have the belief and a strong togetherness to show we are a different team now.
"In the first half of the home game last year we were spectators a little bit and were a bit inhibited.
"I believe that confidence-wise and mentally we are a completely different team today.
"We have made our way forward by challenging in the Premier League and we are still in all competitions.
"If you look at the predictions pre-season, nobody in England predicted we would be where we are today.
"We have made our own way through our own strength and mental belief.
"Losing to Barcelona made us better because we came out of the second game with a lot of frustrations after missing the turning point when we were 1-0 up.
"We are now a stronger team because we have attitude and I have not seen many teams with such consistent focus every day.
"We are in an ideal condition to face Barcelona. We cannot complain, we have the belief, the confidence and the players available.
"We want to show how good we are. We want to show the belief we have in our game and in our quality."
Wenger stated whoever knocks out the Spaniards can almost count on Champions League glory.
"We want to win this competition and we know the only way to do that is to beat the super-favourites," he said.
"Barcelona are certainly the best team in the world at the moment. "If we knock Barcelona out, we straight away have a good chance to win the tournament."
