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Arsenal's Francis Coquelin "ready" for Barcelona test

Arsenal midfielder Francis Coquelin insists that he is "ready" for the challenge of Barcelona and Andres Iniesta in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Arsenal midfielder Francis Coquelin has insisted that he is "ready" to come up against Barcelona when the two sides meet in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash this evening.

The Gunners are underdogs going into the tie with the reigning European champions, having failed to progress past this stage of the competition since 2010.

Coquelin acknowledged that they were coming up against "the best team in the world", but insists that Barca hold no fear for his side, and also said that he is eagerly anticipating testing himself against Andres Iniesta.

"He is a player I really like. 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," he told Arsenal Player.

"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. Everyone needs to be at 100% 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."

Barcelona go into the match on a club-record unbeaten run of 32 matches in all competitions.

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Barcelona's Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez celebrates after scoring during the UEFA Champions League Group E football match FC Barcelona vs AS Roma at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on November 24, 2015
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