Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says he doesn’t want anybody around the club talking about their midweek Champions League exit.
Arsenal’s journey ended in the semi-finals after being defeated by Paris Saint-Germain, who secured their place in the finals with a 3-1 win on aggregate. PSG will now face Inter in the concluding match after a thrilling semi-final victory over Barcelona, which featured 13 goals in total.
Arsenal’s loss was particularly disappointing for Arteta, who remarked post-match that the superior team was not the one advancing. However, the Spanish manager must pivot focus quickly as efforts remain to secure a position in next season’s tournament.
The competition for a top-five finish in the Premier League intensified on Saturday with Manchester City’s unexpected slip-up against relegated Southampton and Aston Villa’s crucial 1-0 win at Bournemouth. Arsenal currently sits comfortably in second place, but face a challenging schedule with a match at Liverpool on Sunday and a home game against Champions League prospect Newcastle United at the Emirates Stadium.
The dust from Arsenal’s European exit has yet to fully settle, with public and media discourse focused on whether the 2024/25 season has turned out to be a disappointment for Arteta, who will again end the campaign without winning a trophy.
Arteta has admitted Wednesday’s exit was tough to take, but stressed it’s not a subject he wants to continue reverberating around the corridors of the north London club.
“We wanted to win the Champions League, and we believed we could,” Arteta told Sky Sports. “That’s the spirit. If someone says ‘Oh, but we have this,’ I don’t want anybody talking about it.
“Wednesday was one of the saddest but proudest nights I have had as Arsenal manager. I want to talk about one, why we didn’t win it, and what we have to do now to win it. That’s what has to drive this club, and everybody involved in it.
“A lot of things have to go your way. What we did was increase the probability, and made that very high that we would reach the final. But we missed too many big chances. We can give credit to them, they had the best goalkeeper in the world saving those moments.”
Arsenal’s season has been dogged by injuries to key players at key times. At one stage, Arteta was without Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus – who both remain sidelined – Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, severely limiting his side’s firepower up front. Lately they’ve been without centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes too, in a damaging blow to Arsenal’s backline.
“The injuries I think have been a nightmare in terms of selecting lineups, substitutions, how we change training sessions – because we have had times without a lot of players available,” Arteta reflected on the issues he’s faced.
“That’s when you want to really raise the standards, win and be much better than the opposition in this league, in this context. It’s very demanding and very tricky.
“We had three or four big injuries, and it’s very difficult to prevent them all. Can we do something different? The luck could have been different, the training could have been different, the gym could have been different, prevention can be different.
“We will look at all those things to try to be better and the reality is that the starting point and the numbers that we had in the beginning to start the season were very, very low and we accepted the challenge because it’s what we could do at that moment.”
