Arteta points finger at Arsenal stars and bemoans injury blows in European exit

16 March 2023 , 23:28

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Arteta points finger at Arsenal stars and bemoans injury blows in European exit

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was left disappointed with his stars for not taking enough care of the ball as his side bowed out of the Europa League on Thursday.

The Gunners looked to be en route to the quarter-finals initially after Granit Xhaka had given them the lead. Pedro Goncalves equalised with a stunning effort from the half-way line.

Scores remained level from then until the end of the titanic tie before Gabriel Martinelli saw his penalty saved in the shootout as Sporting sealed their progression. Arteta was hugely critical of his side for their showings for the vast majority of the game as he attempted to come to terms with the exit.

Speaking to BT Sport, the Spaniard said: " [It's a] huge blow, obviously. There were moments especially in the first 75 minutes where we weren't at our level. We gave every single ball away.

"We didn't have the capacity to dominate the game and take the game where we wanted. It's true in the last 15 minutes, we had the chances and in extra-time, we had the chances to win it. When it goes down to the penalties, it's a lot of uncertainty and we lost it."

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Arteta's assessment grew even more furious as he admitted that his side did not compete enough with their visitors. He added: "I think it was a very different game [to the first leg].

"Especially that we didn't win enough duels when we had them in certain spaces. They are really good at attacking those boxes and second line runs and we didn't put the ball under pressure well enough to do that.

Mikel Arteta was left furious with his side during their defeat to Sporting Lisbon (Getty Images)

"Every time we regained the ball in those areas, we gave it away. We didn't have the ball consistently and that created a really open transitional game that we didn't want to play."

Whilst Arteta was clearly infuriated by the performances of a number of his first-team stars, he did admit that the Gunners' injury worries did not help their cause. Japanese international Takehiro Tomiyasu was withdrawn after just ten minutes after lunging into a tackle.

He was followed by William Saliba who also had to come off after seemingly injuring his back. His absence will be a big blow considering that he has started every Premier League game this season.

"That happened," Arteta said. "It happened with Tomi [Tomiyasu] and Saliba and then we are really restricted to do the changes and we only have one window to do them and only one sub left. We have to accomodate that.

"I think the team got better and better with the changes, especially the last 15 minutes of the full-time and then we had big chances to finish it off but we didn't do it."

Daniel Orme