Arsenal’s coach analyzes the victory against Sporting, highlighting the players’ effort.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta highlighted the team’s qualification for the Champions League semi-finals, a feat not achieved in 140 years. The Spanish coach also discussed Gyökeres’ performance against his former team.
Reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League
My message was one of gratitude towards them (the players). I know the effort and commitment they dedicated. There’s a lot of work behind this. We achieved something that had never been done in the 140-year history of our club. That gives you an idea of the difficulty it represented. We had to do it in a very special way, without many important players, which gives them a lot of credit, and I’m especially happy for our fans, because today they supported the team closely and we’re going to have two magical nights, one in Madrid and another here in London against Atlético, so I’m very proud of that.
Game analysis
You have to be better than your opponent, and I think we had many moments in the game where we rose to the occasion. We didn’t score the goal, we didn’t finish our plays well enough, but we had many other things that are very important to achieve the result we need in a knockout round, and at this moment, it’s also about how we compete. When we want to win titles, that’s what will define the moments, and without a doubt, we did that tonight.
Gyökeres was substituted in the 55th minute.
I felt the game required something else, a different type of number 9, someone who would link up with us more, hold the ball more, because there wasn’t much space to run. And Kai [Havertz] gives us that, he gives us a lot of consistency.
Sporting demanded maximum punishment.
I didn’t see it; what I was told is that it wasn’t a penalty.
