Further Champions League exile will hurt, says Arteta

Failure to reach the Champions League for the fourth successive season could have wide-reaching ramifications for Arsenal, head coach Mikel Arteta has warned.

A shock Europa League exit at the round-of-32 stage, courtesy of an away-goals defeat by Olympiacos, has scuppered one route for Arteta to take the club back to the preferred continental competition.

Add a misfiring Premier League season, which leaves Arsenal lurking around mid-table, and ending their Champions League exile is becoming increasingly unlikely, despite Arteta returning a feel-good factor to the Emirates Stadium.

The early Europa League departure alone will cost the club tens of millions of pounds in lost revenue, with Arsenal posting operational losses on Friday for the first time since 2002. Such factors could influence the club’s business in the summer and Arteta admits there will be no margin for error if money is tight.

“I think the damage caused by the club not being in the Champions League for the third season is really big,” he said. “Financially the impact is enormous because the structure of this club is built to be in the Champions League and you can sustain that for one year or two, but then after that you have to start making decisions.

“So we will have to make decisions one way or the other depending on the scenario we find ourselves in, whether we are in the Champions League, Europa League or nowhere near that.

“It will be difficult but this is the situation we are in now. We don’t have margin for error with those decisions, so they have to be very thorough and clear processes of where we have to improve and how we are going to do that and then go forward with no excuses.”

With the future of key players such as Pierre-emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette potentially linked to playing in the Champions League, Arteta knows keeping both and recruiting talent of a similar level will be affected if Arsenal miss out again.

“I think that is a no-brainer,” he said. “Every player in the world wants to play Champions League and if you talk about having this option on the table, players are in a much more open way to join this club or to renew their contract or to convince anybody because we want to be in that competition.”