Micah Richards slams Bayern Munich star and rates Arsenal's chances in second leg

Serge Gnabry didn’t hesitate in celebrating against his former club Arsenal (Picture: Getty)

Micah Richards has hit out at Bayern Munich star Serge Gnabry for celebrating in front of Arsenal’s supporters during the sides’ 2-2 draw in the Champions League and backed the Gunners to get revenge at the Allianz Arena next week.

Second-half substitute Leandro Trossard struck in the 76th minute at the Emirates to leave the heavyweight quarter-final tie finely poised ahead of what promises to be an intriguing second leg in Munich.

Bukayo Saka broke the deadlock in Tuesday’s absorbing contest with a superb low strike past Manuel Neuer before goals from Gnabry and Harry Kane gave the visitors the lead at the halfway stage.

Gnabry made his presence felt and did not hesitate in producing his trademark celebration after cancelling out Saka’s early opener, a moment that did not go down too well with Arsenal fans given his previous ties to the club.

The forward spent four years with the Gunners before returning to his native Germany to join Werder Bremen back in 2016.

It remains to be seen whether Gnabry will feature in the second leg next Wednesday night, with the Germany international forced off in the 70th minute in north London due to a hamstring injury.

Reflecting on Tuesday’s match on The Rest Is Football podcast, ex-Manchester City and England defender Richards criticised Gnabry for celebrating against his former club, telling the attacker to ‘settle down’.

Richards has backed Arsenal to beat Bayern to a place in the semi-finals (Picture: Getty)

‘Gnabry coming back to his old stomping ground and celebrating in front of the fans… I don’t like that, Gnabry! Settle down, settle down!’ Richards said.

‘He can celebrate but he’s coming down and he’s doing all that sauce nonsense. You can’t do that at the Emirates!

‘They’re coming back for you, Gnabry! They’re coming back for you.’

Saka opened the scoring at the Emirates (Picture: Getty)

Richards reserved special praise for Saka’s display in the first leg, highlighting how the youngster has become Mikel Arteta’s man man in big matches.

‘You know when you have so many good youngsters, especially going into a tournament, and we’ve talked about Declan Rice, we’ve talked about Phil Foden but Saka, honestly…’ he said

‘He is such an intelligent, amazing, wonderful talent and I say that because he sort of takes up the role, “I am going to be the man in the team in the big moments”.

‘You expect that of course when you get the world-class tag but how you define world-class or how you define a player is performing in the big games and he didn’t hide. The top players don’t hide and he took his goal so well.

Bayern held a 2-1 lead at the halfway stage in north London (Picture: Getty)

‘I could see it before he even shot… I was like, “He’s gonna bend this into the far corner”, and then his execution was just brilliant.

‘He’s just such a wonderful player and fair play to Arsenal. If you look at it in terms of experience in the competition, yeah they’ve got [Gabriel] Jesus, [Oleksandr] Zinchenko and that sort of player, [Kai] Havertz who scored for Chelsea against Manchester City in the final, but it’s a young team. Fair play to them.

‘I can see them going to Bayern and actually getting a result because, tactically, we’ve seen what they can do at Manchester City in terms of that low block but we’ve also seen them be expansive as well.

‘It sets up a great tie in that second leg, it really does.’

Ex-Manchester City star Richards is a lifelong Arsenal fan (Picture: Getty)

Richards believes Arsenal are ‘a little bit more together’ than Bayern and views Arteta’s men as the slight favourites to progress to the semi-finals.

‘These are good players. They’re having an off season but these are individual talents which is going to give you individual moments,’ Richards said of Bayern.

‘Going to the Allianz Arena next week is going to be a tough game, really tough. If something clicks for them, Arsenal could be in trouble.

‘But the only reason I would say Arsenal have a better chance is right now they are performing as a team.

‘There have been grumbles in the Bayern camp, obviously [Thomas] Tuchel is leaving, but do you remember Tuchel at Chelsea? Things weren’t going well and they go and win the Champions League so don’t put it past them that they could go and win that game.

‘But I just think, as a team, Arsenal are a little bit more together.’

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