Declan Rice has addressed the controversial decision to deny Arsenal a late penalty during their dramatic Champions League final loss to Paris Saint-Germain.
The Gunners appealed strongly for a spot-kick in the first half of extra time in Saturday night’s showpiece clash in Budapest, with substitute Noni Madueke falling in the box under the challenge of PSG defender Nuno Mendes.
However, their claims were dismissed by referee Daniel Siebert and VAR did not intervene, leaving Arsenal’s players, coaching staff and fans all incensed at what they felt was a clear injustice.
Rice and manager Mikel Arteta were the most animated with their angry protests, for which they both received yellow cards.
Asked about the incident after the game, Rice told TNT Sports: "I've not seen it back yet. At first glance, on the pitch, I think he's [Madueke] ahead of Nuno Mendes.
“If I’m looking back at the one we got against Bayer Leverkusen [for Malik Tillman’s challenge on Madueke in the last-16 first-leg tie], it’s very, very similar.
“Look, I’m not going to get into that. I was gutted at the time because I thought the ref would go and have a look, but it was obviously not clear enough to be a penalty. I thought it was and so did our bench and our players.
"Against PSG, you need to be mentally on it for the whole game. I’m sure a lot of people would have wanted a game like how Bayern played them [in the Champions League semi-finals], but if we’d have gone out there and played like that, that’s what they want, that's how they score five and six against opponents.
“You've got to be really resilient and switched on, a lot of communication. I thought as the game went on, we really grew into it. We had some really good chances and nullified them to hardly any.
“Fair play to them - great team, great manager, great individuals. They've lost loads over the years and obviously now they are having their time.
“I feel like that’s going to keep happening with us, we’re having these small losses but we’re going to go on and keep pushing to try and achieve something big.”
