Worst case scenario from this game coming right up. Extra time, key injuries and demoralising loss

Immediate step up in quality when Partey came on. Then again with Ødegaard.

In front of the sporting fans. Great. Why not just stick them up in the gods and behind some pillars. And sporting go first. Everything not in our favour.

As a psychopath myself I’m loving this.

Hmmm.

Predictable

You guessed it. Do you have the lottery numbers

All due respect Old Man but for me, that’s a good result.

What a *%^@*** shitshow that was.

Too many 4 out of 10 performances and Ramsdale looks like he couldn't save a pen to save his life.

I can only forsee the *%^@ things unfortunately. It’s a gift.

He'd have saved Martinelli's which was a really poor penalty. Any penalty struck there for me has a 50/50 chance of being saved. If the GK guesses right he'll save it.

Apart from the extra time period Sporting were the better side and deserved to progress.

One of the worst performances from us in many a month. Inexplicably bad.

One of the annoying things about tonight is I think Man U will fairly comfortably go on and win this trophy now

Ramsdale guessed right on at least a couple that were very savable but he didn't save them. Reminded me of Leno's inability to save a pen.

Getting knocked out of the Europa League is not going to demoralise us when we are top of the league. So if we've escaped serious injuries, I'm not terribly upset either.

To be fair Martinelli’s was the worst one and only one saved. But yes, terrible night, if we were going to rotate it was a gamble and we got unlucky really with the injuries (so had to take of Jesus at HT), and a long shot that clipped the bar on the way in, and that was enough to tip it away from us.

That’s the difference when you don’t start any of Partey, Saka or Odegard.

I can only think there is so much effort and focus on the prem that the players are just switching off or easing off slightly for this competition. We haven't really played well in any of the games in Europa.

Next year we'll be back in the Champions League so we need to learn quickly how to turn it on in different competitions.

Going out early also really hurts our European ranking points which is used to seed teams in the champions league. If we win the league we'll be top seeds but that is the only way.

Precisely what I was saying yesterday. You bring in 1 single reserve and it messes up the whole system.

Wrap partey and Ødegaard in cotton.

For us to win the tournament we would have had to play another 5 games. It’s a screw up but honestly very rarely do Arsenal have a genuine chance of winning a title.

I think there were two that he'll think were saveable. The one he got a decent hand to and the one he went the right way but it was low and he didn't get his hand down to it quickly enough

If we do lose the league, which I think we will having seen the level of performance of our back-up options tonight, then we will look back on this shitshow of a performance as a lost opportunity.

City put Liebzig to the sword but we couldn't even get past a team 4th in the Portuguese league, playing at home.

It reminded me of champions league games under Wenger--contriving to play badly and lose to inferior opposition.

It makes sense, and I’ll agree - but maybe tomorrow…

One thing to note, a Xhaka/Jorginho midfield axis is so one-paced....very, very slow. Teams can just run through the middle of them. Partey's introduction was a massive step up in quality.

Too soon.

It's surprising because Ramsdale's reaction speed is usually pretty good but I thought his efforts to save the pens were very very poor.

No doubt that City wanted us to win that game tonight. In terms of the title race not having to play those midweek games is a big boost.

If you want to get in to the detail the QF of Europa are played on April 13 and 20. We are scheduled to play Southampton in the prem as the friday night game on April 21 - that game can go ahead at that time which it wouldn't if we'd made the QF.

Man City play as the last game on the sunday that weekend away at brighton.

Then the following Wednesday we go to the Etiahad.

So Arsenal play home to southampton - 4 full days rest then City(a)
City play away to Brighton - 2 full days rest then home to us

I do think you are right because it wasn't just the backup player who were careless.

In retrospect, Arteta should have put Partey on (preferrably for Vieira) sooner. That goal was coming.

By the way, taking that first penalty is a huge advantage. Studies of thousands of shoot outs show the team going first wins 60% of the time.

There are also studies showing the % of kicks scored or saved when your penalty is to keep you in the tie vs winning the tie and the results are as you expect.

Vieira did himself no favours tonight. Obviously very technically gifted but incredibly lightweight and a virtual passenger.

I'd have him on a muscle building programme before next season.

No sleep lost in this house.

Too true, and particularly with Vieira's defensive contribution being negligible compared to Ødegaard's

Sporting played really well in the second half, scored an absolute wonder-goal and their keeper made an astonishing save from Gabriel's header. This is a team that won the league two years ago, going unbeaten, so they are no mugs. We had our chances but didn't capitalise on them.

Yes I was glad to go out of both domestic cups for this reason, I wanted us to do well in the Europa though as I thought we had a chance of winning it.

I think it’s clear however, due to squad depth and rest times between games, we couldn’t win both europa and the league. So this is really the best result if we want to win the league.

But the extra time and injury to Saliba and Tommy have really pissed me off.

Yes it’s not exactly the done thing to bemoan your luck, but after everything else in the game we then lost two tosses of a coin in a row!

Completely agree in respect of the back-up players. Vieira was awful (I really don't get it) but Zinchenko, Zhaka and Martinelli were well below their best and White's passing radar was off.

And but for the recent rule change we’d have gone through on away goals. We’ve gone out to that rule a few times (Bayern and Monaco from memory) and one time we very nearly went out on away goals despite never actually playing at home - in the covid season we played benfica over 2 legs at neutral stadiums both games and so one was randomly declared the home leg for each team and we were close to going out before Aubameyang got a late winner I think

A few other things tonight. 2 early injuries in defence didn’t help. It meant Jesus played 45 rather than his planned 60. And it meant Arteta had to be cautious and wait a bit longer than he might have with his other subs.
We need Jesus, Nketiah, smith Rowe all properly fit for the run in

Our squad is strong but defeats and injuries show the weaknesses below the surface.
Some key areas to address in the summer if we want to take all comps seriously.
Central midfielder. Attributes need to be close to what Partey can do

No.8. This is your more dynamic Xhaka type.

Right wing/striker. Either sign a right wing to compete with Saka, or sign a striker and use Jesus on the right

CB. With white excelling at RB we need another top class CB, holding is a squad player, Kiwior is raw. Get a 3rd CB and use Kiwior and Holding in domestic cups and/sparingly

The rest depends on departures. Ie a new LB is needed of Tierney is sold

Tomiyasu on crutches, could be a serious injury.

He’s missed a lot of games since he joined us. Ditto Tierney. You wonder what Arteta thinks of players who miss so much time consistently. Sounds ruthless but do you look to move them on?