Champions League exit not the end for Arsenal
Arsenal’s players have been stung by their Champions League quarterfinal exit on Wednesday but manager Mikel Arteta said they still have something “beautiful” to play for in the last few weeks of the season as they chase the Premier League title.
Arsenal’s campaign in Europe’s elite club competition came to an end with a 1-0 defeat by Bayern Munich and follows their elimination from both domestic cup tournaments.
The north London club are still in the hunt for the league title, however, sitting second on 71 points, level with Liverpool and two behind leaders Manchester City.
With City in action in the FA Cup this weekend, Arsenal can return to the top of the table with a win at Wolverhampton Wanderers tomorrow.
“What [the players] need is that we stand right next to them, give them our support, our love, and I will have to pick it up because on Saturday we have a big, big, big game,” Arteta said on Wednesday.
“We’re still playing for the Premier League and I really want it.
“We have to show now that we are capable of turning this around.
“The pain is there and it’s not going to go away, certainly tonight, but I can guarantee you by tomorrow we are fully focused on Wolves and everybody’s lifted.
“What we still have to play for is beautiful.”
This was Arsenal’s first season in the Champions League since 2017, and their first quarterfinal since 2010, and Arteta said small margins separated the clubs at this stage of the competition.
“Those margins sometimes are coming from something else, that maybe we don’t have yet,” he said.
“We have to learn it; when you look historically, all the clubs to get to certain stages — it took them seven, eight, some of them 10 years to do it.”
Meanwhile, departing Bayern Munich coach Thomas Tuchel said he was relieved after his team beat Arsenal.
Tuchel, who became the first German coach to lead three different teams to the last four of the Champions League, will leave a year early after a disappointing domestic run.
Bayern will not win any domestic silverware this season after their 11-year reign as Bundesliga champions was ended by Bayer Leverkusen and their bad run led club bosses to part ways with Tuchel at the end of the season.
“The semifinal is a huge step. The last four, that was fun. Great joy and great relief,” Tuchel said.
“These are special moments. We beat one of the top Premier League clubs.
“We will have to see what this win does to the club. The season is not yet over. Especially not now.”
The Bavarians won courtesy of Joshua Kimmich s 63rdminute
that’ header gave them a 3-2 aggregate win over the two legs, with Bayern president Herbert Hainer hailing Tuchel’s coaching as a tactical masterpiece.
They will next face Real Madrid in the last four after the Spaniards eliminated last year’s champions Manchester City on penalties.
Wednesday’s result means Tuchel has become the first German to lead clubs from three different countries to at least the semifinals of the competition after he won the title with Chelsea in 2021 and led Paris St Germain to the final in 2020.