With the victory, the north London outfit has cruised to the Europa League quarter-finals and will hope to avoid high-flying Atletico Madrid when quarter-final draws are conducted on March 16.
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The 5-1 aggregate victory arrived after a hard spell for Arsenal, which included three league defeats in succession and the 3-0 loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final.
“That [Atletico] is certainly the team you would want to avoid, but let’s see, we have no influence on that”, said Wenger, who refused to be lured into a diving row after Welbeck appeared to hit the ground under minimal contact as Arsenal levelled courtesy of a fortuitous penalty.
“Maybe the favourite is Atletico Madrid”.
“We have to wait and see who we get”.
Though a step down from the Champions League, where the Gunners competed for 19 consecutive seasons, hoisting the trophy in 2006, winning the Europa League could redeem an otherwise mediocre campaign for beleaguered manager Arsene Wenger, reports Efe.
They will learn their last-eight opponents when the draw takes place today from 12:00 GMT. If we get Atletico Madrid, we get Atletico Madrid.
Leading 2-0 from last week’s first leg at San Siro, the Gunners fell behind to a stunning Hakan Calhanoglu strike 10 minutes before half-time. – Mesut Ozil created six goal-scoring chances in Thursday’s game; the most by an Arsenal player in European competition since November 2013, when Ozil himself recorded the same amount versus Marseille in the Champions League. We had a hard game but in the end we won it.
With Petr Cech’s star on the wane and fast, the Europa League offers a real opportunity for David Ospina to stake a claim to be Arsenal’s number one goalkeeper. Do you want to accuse English players of being divers?
Saul Niguez restored their lead on the night less than two minutes into the second half, with ex-Liverpool and Chelsea striker Torres adding two further goals, the first a penalty, before substitute Antoine Griezmann deliciously lifted a fifth into the far corner. “I will watch it again”.
“He looked genuine that it was a penalty but the Italian players were not happy with it and I can understand that”.
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“I haven’t seen it again”, he said. “I will give Danny my honest feeling as well, don’t worry”.
