Piers Morgan reflected the mood of each Arsenal fan following their FA Cup defeat against Southampton by rejecting talkSPORT’s invitation to debate one other major setback.
Mikel Arteta’s men suffered an almighty shock at St Mary’s on Saturday evening because the Championship play-off hopefuls’ intensity and courage paid dividends in a famous 2-1 quarter-final triumph.
Substitute Shea Charles’ late strike sent Southampton to the semi-finals and left Arsenal with some soul searching because the shock defeat compounded their Carabao Cup final loss to Manchester City a fortnight ago.
The Gunners will try to get back to winning ways in Lisbon in Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg against Sporting, before the runaway league leaders host Bournemouth in a key game on Saturday.
While there continues to be plenty to play for over the course of the subsequent six weeks, the sensation of losing momentum because the finish line approaches is all too familiar for a fanbase who’ve read this script before.
And Celebrity super fan Mogan, who was already left with egg on his face after he was mocked by Southampton’s X account having delighted in the actual fact Arsenal were drawn against lower league opposition last month, was unwilling to face the music when asked to hitch talkSPORT’s breakfast show hosts Ray Parlour and Jamie O’Hara for a debrief.
‘I just can’t face it,’ wrote Morgan above a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation which he ended with a response which read ‘I’d quite shoot myself’.
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While it’d take Morgan time to come back to terms with events on the south coast, experienced midfielder Christian Norgaard is confident he and his teammates will produce an instantaneous response.
The message is to have a positive body language, to speak along with your team-mates, with the coaching staff.
‘Now shouldn’t be the time to go together with our heads down for too long,’ said the Denmark international.
‘It’s tremendous to be frustrated tonight and in addition tomorrow to analyse what went improper, but then we also should look forward because there are such a lot of big games coming up for this club.’
Arsenal must shake off their first back-to-back defeats of the season to avoid further damage to what has until recently been a memorable campaign.
‘Disappointing evening,’ Norgaard told club media. ‘All of us had our hopes high to win and return to Wembley, but yeah, that’s not the case.
‘Sorry to disappoint so many travelling fans, they created an incredible atmosphere and, yeah, today was not adequate.’
Injury-disrupted Arsenal only managed to threaten periodically at St Mary’s, where few would argue that the hosts didn’t should progress to Wembley.
Ross Stewart coolly struck Saints ahead and Leo Scienza hit the crossbar shortly before Viktor Gyokeres levelled, just for super sub Charles to spark bedlam with a tremendous finish five minutes from time.
Goalscorer, and boyhood Arsenal fan, Stewart said: ‘It’s just pure joy and elation, an incredible night for the club to beat a team of Arsenal’s calibre in the way that we did.
‘I believed we were excellent. It’s an incredible night for the club and there have been some good celebrations within the dressing room – we’ll enjoy tonight.
‘It’s an awesome occasion to stay up for, but we’ve got a number of league business that we’ve got to deal with, and the gaffer has just reinforced that – starting Tuesday we’ve got to be able to go for an additional tough game.’
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