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Arsene Wenger

PARIS. — Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal have the form to outclass Monaco tonight and reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League soccer as the only English side left in the competition.

The match kicks-off at 9:45pm.

The Gunners slumped to a shock 3-1 loss to the Principality side in the first leg at Highbury, 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 these two wins also gave Wenger hope that he can celebrate his return to Monaco, where he made his managerial reputation as coach from 1987-94, with a famous win.

“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 and keep English hopes alive in the Champions League, 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.

Teams have come back from a home first-leg loss only twice in the Uefa Champions League, and both were beaten 1-0 first time out: Ajax (v Panathinaikos FC, 1995-96 semi-finals, 3-0 second leg) and Inter Milan (v Bayern Munich, 2010-11 round of 16, 3-2 away.

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.”

Arsenal were on the floor after losing 3-1 to Monaco last month but the Londoners have rebuilt confidence enough to believe they can overturn their Champions League deficit in tonight’s return match.

Since being beaten in the last-16 first leg at The Emirates, the Gunners have bounced back by knocking Manchester United out of the FA Cup and by overcoming West Ham United, Queens Park Rangers and Everton in the Premier League.

“I think we have pulled ourselves together,” midfielder Francis Coquelin told the club’s website (www.arsenal.com). “There are quite a lot of things to change after you lose 3-1 at home but we’ve done that in recent games.

“We haven’t conceded many goals and we’ve been scoring goals as well. We haven’t lost a game since Monaco and confidence is high.”

France striker Giroud, who had a terrible game in the first leg, also seems to be back to his best and scored the opening goal in Saturday’s 3-0 win over West Ham.

“(Responding) is one of his strengths. This is a boy who played at the age of 22 or 23 in division three,” said manager Wenger of Giroud’s spell with the Tours club. — AFP.