Arsenal Knocked Out Of Europa League After Penalty Shootout Loss To Sporting CP On Cricketnmore

Image source: IANS

Premier League leaders Arsenal were eliminated here in the round of 16 on penalties against Sporting Lisbon at the Emirates Stadium 1-1 (3-5) on penalties.

Gabriel Martinelli saw his penalty saved on penalties, allowing Nuno Santos to convert the winner after a 1-1 draw on Thursday night and a 3-3 draw on aggregate.

There was more bad news for the Gunners in the game as Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba were both eliminated through the first 20 minutes through injury.

“Tomiyasu looks pretty serious for his immediate reaction and what he said to me. Obviously it’s very early and hard to know. William, I don’t know. He had some ailments and couldn’t continue, so we had to take him off,” said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta.

Arsenal were eliminated from the competition despite taking a first-half lead. There was little drama on a long evening in the Emirates when Granit Xhaka Jesus fired Jesus ahead in the first 20 minutes.

But the Gunners failed to extend their lead and were punished when Pedro Goncalves netted an outrageous equalizer near the halfway line.

The Premier League leaders came close to the winner on several occasions in extra time – notably from Gabriel and when Leandro Trossard hit the post – before Sporting had a man sent off late.

Penalties were required in the shootout, although Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard all scored, Martinelli saved his shot from Antonio Adan and the Portuguese team advanced.

After the game, the club manager spoke about the performance in the presser.

“A big blow. We really wanted to come through and fight in the competition and try. Today we tried for 120 minutes and the penalties and it wasn’t enough.”

Looking at ourselves, the game started to get difficult for us. Obviously we lost Tomi very early in the game and we lost Saliba. That really left us with difficult management in the game. We only had one window to make the substitutions and some players couldn’t play for 90 minutes. But we still haven’t found our rhythm and our flow,” said Arsenal.

“We left too many spaces, were late and didn’t win enough duels there. We’ve given the ball away many, many times.

I think when we went into overtime we showed incredible energy and a top mentality again when it wasn’t our best day to go on. We still had two big chances, we didn’t win and in the end it comes down to penalties, it’s a lottery and today it didn’t go our way,” he added.

With Arsenal’s European season over for another season, they have 11 games left this season, all in the Premier League.

The Gunners will be back in the Premier League at the weekend when they host Crystal Palace on Sunday.

With Arsenal’s European season over for another season, they have 11 games left this season, all in the Premier League.

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