Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has insisted what happened to his side last night was very different from Tottenham Hotspur’s Europa League exit, on the Gunners’ official website.
Tottenham were infamously dumped out of the competition, after losing their second-leg 3-0 to Dinamo Zagreb and surrendering a healthy advantage.
Jose Mourinho is still feeling the frustrations of that defeat now from Tottenham fans, but across North London the pressure is also mounting on Arteta.
The Arsenal boss has struggled to meet expectations this term, and the Gunners were disappointing again last night.
Arsenal looked to have pinched a late winner against Slavia Prague when Nicolas Pepe found the back of the net with a delicate chip late on.
But Slavia hit back in the final minutes, as they staged a comeback of their own.
And when asked why Arsenal kept throwing away leads, Arteta had something to say about Tottenham.
“Well, I think it’s very different what happened to Spurs and us tonight,” he said.
“They went with four strikers in the last few minutes and were really direct, being really incisive and they made it hard for us.
“But I said that we played one or two balls into areas that we should not play in the last, final minutes and that’s probably one of the situations for why we ended up conceding a goal. But after conceding the corner, they have to score from that corner, so then something has to happen.”
Arsenal’s draw certainly wasn’t as bad as Tottenham’s utter capitulation in Croatia, but it did not reflect well on Arteta.
And Arsenal now face a tough task in the second-leg, where they will surely have to deliver a far more ruthless performance, if they are to avoid a similar fate to their North London rivals in Europe.
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