We’ll need to score in Madrid if we are to have any chance of reaching the Europa League final.
After Thursday’s first leg, Arsène Wenger outlined what we must do if we are to do that against an Atletico Madrid side who haven’t conceded a goal in their last 11 home matches in all competitions.
on having possession but not making the most of it…
Yeah, it’s frustrating. We had not to force it. We were 1-0 up and the second goal could have come even in the last five minutes. You have to stay 1-0 up and after that, everything is open. They are a team who defend well, we know that. They have one of the best defensive records in Europe, you could see tonight that’s no coincidence. But we had the chances. Once they were down to 10 men, it destroyed a bit the flow of the game and it was not to our advantage.
on optimism ahead of the second leg…
The only advantage of that result is we know exactly what we have to do over there. We have nothing to lose. We have to go there and really play to win the game.
on his last European game at the Emirates and if there’s a feeling of anti-climax…
Yes, I must say our fans were fantastic. That’s what you want. Overall, yes we created the anti-climax by giving the goal away.
on if he took a second to soak up the atmosphere…
No, honestly no. I was focused on doing absolutely everything to win the game. Before the game I was like everybody. We knew that out of the four teams left, we played the favourite. I was more focused on making sure we won the game tonight. We started well, with good pace, good collective drive. The whole thing went wrong in the end but I had not much time to get a rest.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
