No problem with Arsenal’s mentality despite Slavia draw — Arteta

MIKEL Arteta has dismissed suggestions that his Arsenal team might have a weak mentality following their 1-1 draw with Slavia Prague in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League quarter-final on Thursday night.

The Gunners took an 86th minute lead through Nicolas Pepe but still conceded the equaliser in the fourth minute of added time at the Emirates Stadium.

When Arteta was asked during his post-match press conference if he had any concerns over his team’s mentality, he replied: “With my team’s mentality? No, I don’t have any concerns.

“What was missing is that when you create big chances in Europe, you have to take them. 

“I think we merited much more than the result that we got. When we made the most difficult thing, which was to score the first goal and just wait for the last four or five minutes and manage the game much better than we did, we failed to do that and then we gave them the opportunity in the corner and they scored the goal to tie the match and [put us] in a different position. “Looking back to what happened on the pitch, it’s not what we expect.”

Despite the late capitulation, Arteta defended his players’ endeavour.

“I think the players stepped in and have absolutely everything,” he added. “It’s a really difficult opponent to play against with the amount of individual duels and man-to-man situations they create and we managed that really well in certain moments. 

“We were much more aggressive today, and ambitious to play the game we wanted to play and we created some big chances.”

Arsenal have to win in the second leg next Thursday or get a high-scoring draw to advance to the semi-finals.

Arteta is confident his side can get the result they need.

He said: “I totally believe we can go there and win the match, or I wouldn’t be sitting here. The mindset has to be to go there and score goals and win the game, because we need to score if we want to go through.”

Arsenal have surrendered a few leads in recent games but Arteta believes each situation is different and there is no connection between Thursday’s draw and previous ones.