After we booked our spot in the quarter-finals of the Champions League for successive seasons for the first time in 15 years, Mikel Arteta passed the plaudits onto his players for making that a reality.
Having been out of the competition for six seasons, we’ve now reached the last eight in both of our campaigns back in Europe’s premier club competition. You have to go back as far as a time before Mikel arrived in north London as a player for the last time that happened, and he’s delighted we’ve reestablished ourselves as one of the continent's most consistent teams.
With Real Madrid confirmed as our opponents, the boss is already beginning to think about that huge game against the 15-time champions, and wants a special atmosphere when Los Blancos arrive at Emirates Stadium for the first time in competitive action.
Reflecting on our achievement, Mikel said: “We’re very happy again to be in the quarter-finals for the second consecutive season, that’s very difficult to achieve.
“For a big club, [15 years] is a long time so that shows you how difficult it is to do it. Big credit to the boys and we want much more; we know that we are capable, we have the ability to do it and certainly we really want it.
“We have to make it happen now, we have to use the home advantage in the first leg and really create something unique here and really go for it.”
We secured our place in the quarters courtesy of a 2-2 draw against PSV Eindhoven, as the boss made seven changes to his line-up thanks to our 7-1 success in the previous leg.
Oleksandr Zinchenko and Declan Rice got the goals, both of which were assisted by man of the match Raheem Sterling, and Mikel was delighted with the impact those who came into the team made on the game.
“It was very good and certainly because they haven’t played for a long time,” he added. “For example Jakub or Ben, especially in the right unit, it was all new and very different to usual. The boys adapted to try very hard and I’m very pleased that they got the minutes.
“We have to share the goals when we don’t have a player that is consistently scoring a lot of goals so it’s great. Alex scored a beautiful goal today, the second as well, it was a great contribution from Raz and a late run from Declan which is the second game in a row that he’s doing it, so it’s good habits.”
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