Mertesacker and Co. have a mountain to climb if they are to reach the Champions League quarter-finals following their 2-0 loss at home to Barcelona on Tuesday.
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“I liked everything from the very beginning”, he told reporters afterwards. Lionel Messi coolly slotted in their first goal on 71 minutes, taking the final touch and scoring after some fine link-up play by Luis Suarez and Neymar on the counter-attack.
“I felt [that they influenced the referee] but let’s be honest, we haven’t lost the game because of the referee”.
“Honestly I didn’t believe they would lose against Shrewsbury and Midtyjlland”, he said in his pre-match press conference, when asked if Manchester United have momentum now.
“It’s a bit disappointing to give them the goals that we did, especially the first goal. We will have to play really well in front of our crowd in order to be in the next round”.
Arsenal now face an uphill task in the second leg at the Camp Nou on March 17 and Wenger conceded that Barcelona are favourites to go through to the next stage.
It was a nervy start to the game as the Danish side took a 1-0 lead, but Rashford’s brace contributed to a 5-1 victory for United on the night.
Soon after that Pique went rushing in with a late lunge on Arsenal substitute Danny Welbeck and was yellow carded by Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir.
However, Luis Enrique denied any skullduggery. “Gerard Pique, if your saw the fault, he had to do that fault, it wasn’t deliberate at all”.
Per Mertesacker has highlighted Arsenal’s attacking shortcomings and suggested that their lack of cohesion and penetration was the reason for the Champions League defeat to Barcelona at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.
“We were impatient in the build-up, we lost balls that we don’t usually lose. But we knew in the second half they would slow down, it is hard to keep up such a high rhythm”, the 28-year-old said.
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“If Arsenal are going to reach Barcelona’s level, they must look to sign better players”. “Sunday it is a great chance to forget about what happened in the last 20 minutes against Barcelona and just focus on all the things that went well”.
