Tuesday 23 February 2016 18:44, UK
Francis Coquelin is relishing the opportunity to go head-to-head with Andres Iniesta when Arsenal host Barcelona in the Champions League on Tuesday.
The Gunners midfielder was rested for the goalless draw with Sky Bet Championship leaders Hull City in the FA Cup fifth round on Saturday, but is expected to be restored to the starting line-up by manager Arsene Wenger for the visit of the Catalan giants.
Coquelin is likely to be tasked with the role of shutting down Iniesta and he accepts it will be a tough ask to contain the Spain World Cup winner.
"He is a player I really like," he told Arsenal Player ahead of the first-leg of their last-16 tie at the Emirates Stadium.
"Every player they have got is almost the best in every position. Playing Iniesta is going to be tough, but I'm ready for it and I'm looking forward to it.
"Any player wants to play players at this level and I'm ready for it if I'm involved. Everyone wants to play these types of games. We are really looking forward to it."
Barcelona are unbeaten in their last 32 matches in all competitions and currently boast the world's most in-form forward line in Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar, who have scored a combined 91 goals between them so far this season.
Coquelin is under no illusions about the difficulty of the task facing Arsenal, but believes he and his team-mates can go into the match with no fear.
"Barcelona are probably the best team in the world at the moment. We are obviously looking forward to it even if it is really tough. Hopefully we can do something against such a massive team," he said.
"Everyone needs to be at 100 per cent and I don't think we need to play with fear. We need to be ready and believe we can do something.
"If we have that belief, we can do great things. We showed that in the past against Bayern Munich a few months ago. Not many people said we could win this game and we showed we can compete with great teams as well."
