Arsenal have been forced to focus all their efforts on trying to end their long wait for a league title following their Europa League elimination at the hands of Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was disappointed with his stars for not taking care of the ball enough when his side exited the Europa League on Thursday.
The Gunners initially looked set for the quarter-finals after Granit Xhaka put them ahead. Pedro Goncalves equalized with a beautiful effort from the halfway line.
The scores remained level from then on until the end of the mammoth draw before Gabriel Martinelli saw his penalty saved in the shootout as Sporting sealed their progression. Arteta was hugely critical of his side for their displays for the vast majority of the match as he attempted to accept the exit.
Speaking to BT Sport, the Spaniard said: ” [It’s a] huge blow of course. Especially in the first 75 minutes there were times when we were not at our level. We gave away every ball.
“We didn’t have the capacity to dominate the game and take the game where we wanted. It’s true that in the last 15 minutes we had the chances and in extra time we had the chances to win. If it turns out for the penalties, it’s a lot of uncertainty and we lost that.”
Arteta’s assessment was further infuriated when he admitted his side were not competing enough with their visitors. He added: “I think it was a completely different game [to the first leg].
“Especially that we won too few duels when we had them in certain areas. They are really good at attacking those boxes and second-line runs and we didn’t press the ball well enough for that.
“Every time we got the ball back in those areas, we gave it away. We didn’t have the ball all the time and that made for a very open transition game that we didn’t want to play.”
While Arteta was clearly furious at the performances of some of his first-team stars, he admitted the Gunners’ injury concerns did not help. Japan international Takehiro Tomiyasu was withdrawn after just ten minutes after a lunge on a tackle.
He was followed by William Saliba who also had to get off after apparently injuring his back. His absence will be a major blow as he has started every Premier League game this season.
“That’s done,” Arteta said. “It happened with Tomi [Tomiyasu] and Saliba and then we are really limited to make the changes and we only have one window to do them and only one sub left. We have to take that into account.
“I think the team got better and better with the changes, especially the last 15 minutes of full-time and then we had great chances to finish it, but we didn’t do it.”