Sporting Lisbon captain Morten Hjulmand claimed Arsenal’s delaying tactics contributed to last night’s ‘boring’ Champions League stalemate.
Mikel Arteta was keen to praise his side who made club history by progressing to the semi finals of Europe’s elite club competition for the second leg in a row after protecting their 1-0 first leg advantage.
In fact, nonetheless, it was one other disjointed performance, particularly in attacking sense, and did little to suggest they’re capable of manufacturing the form of display that may get their faltering title challenge back on target at Manchester City this weekend.
Sporting, meanwhile, were left to rue their very own failings within the reverse fixture last week, in addition to the probabilities they spurned towards the top of the primary half at Emirates Stadium, most notably the chance that Geny Catamo volleyed against the post.
The Portuguese champions rarely threatened within the second period as Arsenal’s defence held firm, but Hjumland felt his side’s cause wasn’t helped by Arsenal taking far too long over their set piece preparations.
Asked if the most effective team on the night progressed, the Denmark international said: ‘I feel it was an excellent game today the impact of the primary game that we lost made it harder to go to the Emirates and win, especially when don’t often lose at home we knew it might be difficult here.
‘However the game had low intensity and no rhythm, zero goal and I might say boring.’
Pressed on what made the sport such a disjointed affair, he added: ‘I feel so much stops in the course of the game so we couldn’t get the rhythm that we desired to. A bit of bit boring.
‘If I used to be a viewer from outside 0-0, also the primary game 1-0 it’s not the way in which Sporting wants to point out itself. We wish to attain goals, create possibilities and we didn’t do it today.
‘Through the game I felt a whole lot of stops, especially during set-pieces and it takes a whole lot of trip of the sport.
‘After we did get the rhythm we did create a whole lot of possibilities, especially in the primary half. But at the top we didn’t create enough to win the sport to be honest.’
While the opposite last eight ties were packed filled with incident, goals and drama, this particular quarter final stood out like a sore thumb for all of the mistaken reasons.
Asked to match Arsenal with the opposite teams who’ve made the semi finals, PSG, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid, Hjumland said: ‘I prefer to talk about Sporting and compare them to other teams.’
With the overriding emotion from an Arsenal viewpoint one in all relief, Arteta was keen to emphasize the positives of reaching the latter stages once more and with a tie against a side they’ve already comprehensively beaten this season to stay up for.
‘It’s an important night, I’m so pleased with everybody on the club,’ said the Arsenal boss. ‘Thanks to our supporters for the style through which they followed the team.
‘It’s the primary time we’ve [reached the semi-finals consecutively] in 140 years, in order that tells you the issue and magnitude of what we’ve done.
‘I feel we don’t realise it now, but we’ll realise it in just a few years, so don’t take as a right what we’ve done. It’s extremely difficult to attain, and it’s never been achieved [by ourselves], so big gratitude to our players and everybody who’s contributed to achieving that.
‘We’re not perfect, we would like to enhance in every area, but now we have two magical nights to play against Atletico and we’re definitely going to arrange well for that.
‘We’ll take things from [October’s meeting] and games they’ve played recently, but we’re going to need to go to Madrid, be ourselves, and compete in the style now we have – after which we’ll have a giant likelihood to win it.’
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