Myles Lewis-Skelly's wholesome comment after beating Real Madrid sums up Arsenal star's rise

Myles Lewis-Skelly admitted to being taken by surprise by the challenge of playing at the Bernabeu after booked their place in the semi-finals of the . The youngster started both legs of the quarter-finals.

The Gunners backed up a 3-0 first leg win by . It means they have reached the final four for the first time in 16 years, with the 2008/2009 season the last time they made it to this stage.

Lewis-Skelly was just two years old when they lost to in that campaign's semi-final. The left-back is now a key member of Arsenal's starting line-up, having cemented himself in defence.

He made his debut in September's draw at and has since made 30 appearances for the senior team. Remarkably, this is his first season around Mikel Arteta's first-team squad.

That means that he is experiencing top-level matches for the first time. That was evident on Wednesday during his post-match interview in which he opened up on facing Madrid away from home.

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He told TNT Sports: "It was incredible. When you see it [Bernabeu] on TV it is a lot different to what it is live. The fans don't make it easy for us. As long as we stuck together and backed each other through the high and lows we would be fine."

Lewis-Skelly certainly rose to the occasion. He played all 90 minutes, completing 83 percent of his passes, making five clearances and winning nine of his 11 defensive duels.

The youngster is likely to again play a key role in the semi-finals against , with the first leg coming in two weeks. Lewis-Skelly's team-mate had a warning for the French champions.

"Top team, played them once already. We feel like they're a different team to back then. We've seen what they can do. But also we've seen what Villa done to them last night, causing them lots of problems," he told TNT Sports.

"Look we'll be working hard. We now have to go to Ipswich on Sunday which is going to be a tough game because we want to keep going and keep winning matches in the Prem. And also like you said, focus on this competition."

"It’s an historic night for this club. We have an objective in this competition – we want to play the best teams and win this competition. There was a lot of talk about them coming back because they’ve done it so many times before," he added.

"But we had a belief and confidence that we’d win the game. We had it in our mind, and we did it in real life. What a night for the club. It’s been tough in the – we lost out by a point last year and this year it’s slipped away for us – but in this competition we’ve done amazingly well.

"We have full trust in this manager; he’s unbelievable. The semi-finals is massive for us. We just want to take tonight in, then it’s PSG who are an amazing team."

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