After seeing his side impress in the midst of a vociferous atmosphere at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium, Mikel Arteta now can’t wait for us to enjoy home advantage in the second leg of our Champions League semi-final.
We return to north London with the tie tied at 1-1, after Viktor Gyokeres and Julian Alvarez exchanged penalties, but we more than held our own in the carnival-like din in the Spanish capital. Mikel felt that we managed to block that out and concentrate on ourselves and the task in hand – getting back to north London with a chance to progress.
And with two massive games at Emirates Stadium coming in the space of three days, Mikel is already keen to start looking forward and getting everyone in the right frame of mind for what is to come.
On tonight’s game, he said: “What an atmosphere to play football in. The stadium, the passion that they put in was second to none.
“I think we navigated the game in a great way. We knew they were going to have moments of dominance, and in the semi-finals of the Champions League in this stadium, it was very difficult. I’ve seen many big teams get outplayed here and lose three or four. The moment that (Atletico) click, they get that momentum and that energy, they are really dangerous.
“It’s not the result that we wanted, but the good thing is that we have to play the second leg at home in front of our people, and with the chance if we win again to be in the final.
“Let’s start to get ready because we can’t wait. We have to now prepare for Fulham, so I just said to the boys get the energy right, sleep, eat, get a lot of love, because first of all is Fulham and we need to put our heads down.”
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The game ended up being a contest decided by penalties – two of which were scored and one overturned, which didn’t go in our favour after Ebere Eze had been adjudged to have been tripped in the box by David Hancko before VAR urged referee Danny Makkelie to reassess his decision.
That really disappointed Mikel who had no complaints for the penalty awarded to Atleti after Ben White was adjudged to have handled a shot but felt the on-field decision should have stood in the key moment of the 90 minutes.
Reflecting on those decisions, he added: “We started the game pretty well – I think we dominated, especially the first half in the manner that we wanted to score the goal. Then we had a period in the second half where we didn’t start well, in the first 15, 20 minutes, credit to them. We were very sloppy, very imprecise with the ball, and in that moment we conceded the goal in a really disappointing way with Ben’s handball.
“We know at this level, because they’ve been quite consistent, that it’s going to be a penalty, I accept that because within the rules and explanations they give from the beginning, so I expect that to happen. What is unacceptable and what we’re all fuming about is how the penalty of Ebs gets overturned in the manner that it has. At this level, this cannot happen.
“There were two penalties yesterday in the PSG v Bayern Munich game as well, so I’m not surprised about it – let’s be consistent and it is what it is, it cannot be overturned on the day in the semi-final because a lot have made that decision.”
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