Noni Madueke and Declan Rice take aim at ‘jealous’ Arsenal haters

Noni Madueke and Declan Rice mocked Arsenal haters as their Premier League title celebrations continued on Sunday.

The Gunners won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, finished their campaign seven points clear of nearest rivals Manchester City.

The season still ended with some disappointment as they were beaten in the Champions League final on Saturday in painful circumstances.

After a 1-1 draw over 120 minutes, the clash with Paris Saint-Germain was decided by a penalty shootout, which the French side won 4-3.

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Not to be kept down, the Arsenal squad and staff returned to north London for their Premier League title parade on Sunday, attracting huge numbers of fans to celebrate the success.

Sky News report that around 750,000-1,000,000 fans were on the streets of the capital as the open top bus carrying the Arsenal stars made its way around the route.

After the loss in Budapest, rival fans have been keen to take the edge off Arsenal’s celebrations, but Madueke and Rice are not having it.

England winger Madueke posted a picture with Rice on Instagram, with the caption: ‘Champions! Whilst others are tweeting and posting 😂 Thank you God. The glory is yours!’

Rice replied: ‘Jealousy everywhere 🤣🤣🤣🤣’

The former West Ham midfielder was in buoyant mood during the parade, sending a warning to rivals that there is a lot more to come from this Arsenal team.

‘I love this team, I love this manager,’ Rice said. ‘To see the joy we can give people it’s crazy.

‘Next year we’re coming back for more. Lock in or get locked out.’

It has not just been Arsenal narrowly losing out to PSG that has come in for stick, but their style of play in Budapest and more broadly over the season.

Gary Lineker said a PSG victory was a win for football, saying on The Rest is Football: ‘Looking at the game as a fan with no skin in the game, I think Arsenal had to play that way because they wouldn’t have beaten PSG any other way, but at the same time I think football won.

‘I know there are all different sort of ways to play and there’s nothing wrong with playing defensively. But at the same time football is entertainment and you want to see teams that are really positive, creative and have the best players and play wonderful football.’

Manchester United legend Alex Ferguson has also criticised Arsenal’s approach, while praising PSG’s.

Arteta himself seemed to admit that his team needed more fluency going forward, but offered reasons why his side have not shown much attacking verve.

Asked if his team needed to be a bit like PSG to make a step up, he said: ‘Yes, and the individual action that they have for sure.

‘Then you have to get into the competition with all the squad available in every moment, each player. We have had many more players than last season but not all of them in that condition for different reasons. That’s something that we have to improve on as well.

The Gunners boss also suggested that changes will need to be made this summer, urging the club to ‘very important decisions’ to show their ambition.

‘I will take a few days with my family and then we will all start the process to review what we’ve done,’ he said. ‘We’ll start to make some very important decisions, we want to reach another level. We’re going to have to show that ambition because they are more than capable of doing it but it’s going to demand us to be very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart.’