Mikel Arteta says he must offer his Arsenal team “support and love” after Bayern Munich eliminated them from the Champions League.
Joshua Kimmich‘s second-half header in Germany handed Bayern a 1-0 win that night and a 3-2 aggregate triumph in their quarter-final.
Arsenal suffered their second consecutive defeat, having lost control of the Premier League title race against Aston Villa 2-0 the previous Sunday.
“I wish I had the right words to say to the players to make them feel better. What I am going to do – and all the coaching staff too – is to be close to the players.” Arteta said.
“I feel so grateful to be the coach and to work with them every single day.”
“We haven’t played this competition for seven years and we haven’t been in this stage for 14 years,” he said. “There’s a reason for it.
“We want to do everything fast-forward, super-quick, in one season. I think we have the capacity and the quality to be in the semi-final because the margins are very small.
“Those margins are coming from something else that maybe we don’t have yet. We have to learn it.
“When you look historically, it took other clubs seven, eight or 10 years to do it. Today, that’s not going to make us feel better that’s for sure.”
We are still playing for the Premier League. The Premier League is there and we really want it. We have to show now that we are capable of turning this around.”
