Arteta and his Arsenal squad
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard admitted the Gunners did not play with their normal energy as they crashed out of Europe at the hands of Sporting Lisbon.
Mikel Arteta’s men hosted the Portuguese giants in the second leg of their Europa League last 16 clash. Midfielder Granit Xhaka put Arsenal in front, but Pedro Goncalves equalised for the visitors just after the hour mark, with a brilliant chip over Aaron Ramsdale.
Neither side could find a way through before the end of the 90 minutes, sending the game into extra-time and eventually to penalties. Gabriel Martinelli crucially missed the Gunners’ fourth spot-kick, with Nuno Santos stepping up to send Sporting through.
Odegaard came off the bench during extra-time, but five of Arsenal’s regular starters did play all 120 minutes. First-choice right-back Ben White was also forced to play all but the first nine minutes after Takehiro Tomiyasu was hit by injury early on.
Thomas Partey and Bukayo Saka also came off the bench before the 70 minute mark, with Arteta’s side ending the game with nine of their first-choice starters. And concerningly, Odegaard admitted that his side did not carry the same energy as usual into the game.
“I think we did enough in some periods of the game but most of the game we weren’t on the level we should be. We didn’t play our best football. It was a tight game in the end, it could have gone both ways,” the midfielder told BT Sport.
Courtesy: mirror.co.uk
