Arsenal under Mikel Arteta has been improving season upon season progressively. While last year they competed for the Premier League title with Manchester City, this season they have shown their improvement in the Champions League as they reached the semifinal of the tournament, which is only the third time in the history of the club, and one which came after 16 years.
However, they lost to Paris Saint-Germain 3-1 on aggregate and are out of the competition on Wednesday night. “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. Arteta said speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the Gunners clash against Liverpool.
“We wanted to win the Champions League, and we believed we could,” he said. “That’s the spirit. If someone says ‘Oh, but we have this,’ I don’t want anybody talking about it,” said Arsenal’s manager. “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,” he added.
Paris St Germain weathered an early Arsenal storm before goals by Fabian Ruiz and Achraf Hakimi sealed a 2-1 victory. Trailing 1-0 from last week’s first leg, Arsenal dominated the early stages in the Parc des Princes with PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma making vital saves.
Arsenal were made to pay for not taking their chances as Ruiz then slammed home a stunning left-foot shot past David Raya in the 27th minute to double PSG’s aggregate lead. Raya saved Vitinha’s penalty in the 69th minute but shortly afterwards Hakimi made it 2-0 on the night with a sweetly-struck shot that gave Raya no chance.
