The Gunners travel to France having won all NINE of their last nine away games - and German centre-half Mertesacker is confident of sealing another one tonight.

He said: "We have an exceptional team - that's the main thing.

"We built up confidence from last season, especially the last 10 games when we didn't lose anything.

"You could feel it from the first day that there is something special in this team, apart from the first game [against Aston Villa], no one dropped and the performance went well after that.

"We have shown so far that we are ready to keep our confidence and keep the run going. The most important thing is to keep that mental level high and to be prepared for because it will be hard.