Champions League exit not the end of Arsenal’s season, says Arteta

Arsenal’s players has been stung by its UEFA Champions League quarterfinals exit on Wednesday but manager Mikel Arteta said it still has something “beautiful” to play for in the last few weeks of the season as they chase the Premier League title.

Arsenal’s campaign in Europe’s elite club competition came to an end with a 1-0 defeat by Bayern Munich and follows its elimination from both domestic cup tournaments.

The north London club is still in the hunt for the league title, however, sitting second on 71 points, level with Liverpool and two behind leaders Manchester City.

With City in action in the FA Cup this weekend, Arsenal can return to the top of the table with a win at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday.

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“What (the players) need is that we stand right next to them, give them our support, our love, and I will have to pick it up because on Saturday we have a big, big, big game,” Arteta told reporters on Wednesday.

“We’re still playing for the Premier League and I really want it. We have to show now that we are capable of turning this around.

“(The pain) is there and it’s not going to go away, certainly tonight, but I can guarantee you by tomorrow, we are fully focused on Wolves and everybody’s lifted.

“What we still have to play for is beautiful.

This was Arsenal’s first season in the Champions League since 2017, and its first quarterfinal since 2010, and Arteta said small margins separated the clubs at this stage of the competition.

“Those margins sometimes are coming from something else, that maybe we don’t have yet,” he added.

“We have to learn it, when you look historically, all the clubs to get to certain stages, it took them seven, eight, some of them 10 years to do it.”