Arsenal Spanish Manager, Mikel Arteta, has bared his mind following the English Premier League club’s exit from the Uefa Europa League.
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| Arsenal Spanish Manager Mikel Arteta. Photo: @Arsenal |
The Gunners were knocked out of the Uefa Europa League by Sporting CP in a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw for 120 minutes.
After the encounter, Gunners Boss, Arteta, described the clash as a “huge blow” for his side, further saying “we really wanted to go through and fight”.
Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta’s post-Sporting CP press conference:
On a disappointing night…
A huge blow. We really wanted to go through and fight in the competition and go for it. Today, we tried for 120 minutes and the penalties, and it wasn’t enough. First of all, congratulations to Sporting CP for going through. Looking at ourselves the game started difficult for us. We didn’t find our rhythm and our flow. We allowed too many spaces, were late and didn’t win enough duels there. We gave the ball away many, many times. And then the last 20 minutes, we got the flow and the momentum, we got into the final third much more and created three big chances, and we didn’t score. It wasn’t our best day to keep going. We had another two big chances, we didn’t win and at the end it comes to the penalties, it’s a lottery, and today it didn’t go our way.
On Tomiyasu and Saliba’s injuries…
Tomiyasu looks pretty serious, for his reaction straight away and what he said to me. Obviously, it’s very early and difficult to know. William, I don’t know. He had some discomfort and could not carry on, so we had to take him off.
On if this defeat could be a blessing in disguise…
I cannot see it that way today. I don’t know, if you go through the competition and win it, it’s magnificent, if it’s not, then it affects your plans in the league, that’s a different story. We wanted to go through and we put everything into it, the effort the boys put when it wasn’t our best day, individually and collectively, the hunger and the desire they showed to win, the way they were tracking back was incredible, they really wanted it and today it didn’t happen. We need to put our heads up, look towards Crystal Palace, it’s 11 games left, the first one starts on Sunday.
On if we need to forget about tonight entirely…
No, because we gave everything. It wasn’t our day, we weren’t at our best individually and collectively, but they absolutely gave every drop of effort that they could on that pitch, but it wasn’t enough, but if we do things better on Sunday than what we’ve done today, we’ll have a big chance to win the game.
Credit on Mikel Arteta’s post-sporting CP press conference: Arsenal.com
