“I don’t want someone who talks about it.”
Mikel Arteta takes some comfort from Arsenal’s first Champions League semi-final of 16 years. It has been a season of progress in Europe for his side that not only reached the milestone – only for the third time in their history – but also 15 -time winners Real Madrid on the way.
But that’s not enough. When the curtain comes down on 2024/25, it will do so with Arsenal, which is getting into their sixth season since they last lifted silverware. What is likely to be a hat-trick of Premier League runners-up spots, and which runs to Final Four in Europe this season, has cemented a feeling of being always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
Sunday, May 11 at 1 p.m. 16.15
Start at. 16.30
Talking to Sky Sports Prior to a trip to league winners Liverpool and admit will be a painful honorary guard for the recent crown masters, the Gunners chief says he is more interested in talking about why they missed the Champions League Glory – and does not dispute the outside noise of the need for greater attacking threat.
“We wanted to win the Champions League and we thought we could,” he said. “That’s the spirit. If someone says ‘oh but we have this,’ I don’t want anyone who talks about it.
“Wednesday was one of the saddest but proudest nights I’ve had as Arsenal Manager. I want to talk about one, why we didn’t win it and what to do now to win it. That’s what’s going to run this club and everyone involved in it.
“A lot of things have to go your way. What we did was increase the likelihood and made it very high that we would reach the final. But we missed too many great chances. We can give honor to those they had the best goalkeeper in the world to save these moments.
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Mikel Arteta admits that Arsenal has taken a step back in the Premier League prior to their clashes against Liverpool, confirming that they will give an honorary guard.
“I understand the story [about signing a No 9]. When you create five expected goals but only score one, it will happen. That’s normal.
“We look at things with much more data and resources than many people, but many people have very good intuition on what is needed – and it is good to listen to these opinions.
“We have a very clear vision from the ownership, the owner and the board, the new sports director, we are all in line with what we want to do. We are very close to achieving it – and that is it.
“Some days it will be sunny, then the storm comes. You have to go through every single day, lift your head up, make sure you do your very best in a very honest way and you fully believe what you can do. Then it will.”
Arsenal’s injury list has dwared it of their title rivals and is something that Arteta has referred to periods when his team has been particularly stretched.
After reflecting on where both their Premier League and Champions League campaigns were sliding away, he suggested that his back staff’s soul search had already questioned whether it was really outside their control – or another “probability” that they could improve by next season, through changes in training or having a larger pool of players to choose from.
“The injuries I think have been a nightmare in choosing line -ups, substitutions, how we change training sessions – because we’ve had times without many players available,” he said.
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Sky Sports’ Nick Wright analyzes Arsenal’s defeat over two legs to PSG in the Champions League and clarifies the areas where they came under the French club.
“That’s when you really want to raise the standards, win and be much better than the opposition in this league, in this context. It is very demanding and very difficult.
“We had three or four major injuries and it is very difficult to prevent them. Can we do something else? Happiness could have been different, the training could have been different, the gym could have been different, prevention may be different.
“We want to look at all these things to try to be better, and the reality is that the starting point and the songs we had at the beginning of starting the season were very, very low and we accepted the challenge because that was what we could do in that moment.”
See Liverpool vs Arsenal at Sky Sports Premier League From 16.15 on Sunday, kick-off 16.30.