Mikel Arteta says beating Bayern Munich to qualify for the Champions League semi-final would be an “unbelievable” step for the club — with a potentially transformational impact on what remains of their season.
On the eve of their Champions League quarter-final second leg against Bayern Munich, Arteta sought to put Sunday’s defeat to Aston Villa behind him and issued a rallying cry to his team.
“Throw the game away, the one that we played a few days ago,” he said of the 2-0 defeat to Villa. “Regardless of that result, it is going to have no impact on what’s going to happen tomorrow. Refocus and start to build the confidence, the trust and understanding the performance that we are going to have to put in tomorrow to beat them and go through in the tie.
“If we make it happen tomorrow and we’re in the semi-final, we’ll be in a really high emotional state with something that we haven’t achieved in 15 years. That’s the opportunity.”
If Arsenal can overcome Thomas Tuchel’s side, they will reach the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time since 2008-09. The tie is delicately poised: a 76th-minute equaliser from Leandro Trossard meant Arsenal came away from the first leg with a 2-2 draw.
Arsenal have suffered some humbling defeats to Bayern in the past, but Arteta insisted: “We have to change it. There are lots of things we can do to write our story very differently tomorrow, we know that and it is going to be about putting in a very, very strong performance collectively and individually to earn the right to be in the semi-final.”
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, who was withdrawn from Sunday’s game against Aston Villa as he was “feeling something”, was able to join first team training at London Colney this morning. Arteta said that Odegaard and Bukayo Saka should “hopefully” be available for selection.
“Today we had only less than 48 hours to recover from the game,” said Arteta. “We have done very little training. We will assess them tomorrow and see how they are.”
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