Arsenal have touched down in Madrid, and Mikel Arteta was whisked straight to the Metropolitano to face the media.
At first, he surprisingly said Jurrien Timber had travelled with the squad, but quickly backtracked on that before offering a somewhat downbeat update on the Dutchman, who has been sidelined for a month.
Buoyed by Saturday’s win over Newcastle, Arteta sounded bullish about his side’s chances against Atletico, whom Arsenal beat 4-0 in the league phase, though he made clear that fine margins could decide the tie.
He also fielded questions on Arsenal’s final home game of the season being moved to a Monday night, links with Julian Alvarez, and the forecast of storms in the Spanish capital tomorrow evening.
Here’s what he said…
On Havertz and Eze…
Kai is out. Ebs is ready to go.
On Calafiori and Timber…
Yeah, those two are available for tomorrow.
On taking confidence from a big win over Newcastle…
After that win, a massive win for us against Newcastle, you could sense straight away the energy, the confidence coming into this game. It’s a massive privilege to be here again two years in a row in the semi-final of the Champions League, representing our club. And what an opportunity. We’re going to grab it with both hands. You’re going to see a team that wants to be dominant, that wants to win it, and that wants to start to decide the tie tomorrow.
On what he expects from Atletico…
A really tough match, a team that has so much experience in the competition, that they have every right to be here because what they’ve done again is remarkable. We know the difficulty of the match but I think we have shown in Europe, in any ground, what we are capable of. We’ve been very consistent and tomorrow we have to play with that confidence, with that desire and that will to come here to win the game.
On saying Timber is back…
You spotted that one? Jurrien is not in the squad. But Riccy [Calafiori] and Bukayo [Saka] are.
On Odegaard saying this is an opportunity to make history…
That’s the way we are all feeling, and that’s the energy that I feel amongst the team and the club. This is the stage that we want to be at, and we have earned it through incredible work, passion and quality in the last nine months and now is the moment to make a statement and show how good we are, how much we want it and make it happen. It’s clear, the opportunity is in front of us, and we have to attack it.
On what his side needs to take into account when facing a Simeone side in the Metropolitano…
I think every opponent and every context, whether it is the stadium, the opponent, the manner that they play, have differences, and there are things that obviously have to be highlighted, whether their strength or their weaknesses as well and especially against them. There are moments in the game, and we have to manage that so, so well to be successful and win the game.
On beating Madrid in the League phase but doing the same against PSG last year, only to go out, and whether that has influenced his message to the team…
No, because it’s not a very positive one. There are a lot of positive messages that I can send to the team. Obviously, we learn things from that game, but tomorrow’s game is going to be a completely different one. Especially playing here. We know what they’ve done and what they are capable of, and as well because we have some experience as well in these kind of games and we know exactly what we have to do.
On Simeone suggesting Arsenal, PSG and Barcelona want Alvarez and what threat he poses…
You know that I don’t talk, I should never talk about any player that is not our player.
On storms being predicted and the pitch being slippery…
We’ve been unlucky! We adapt to any context and for the last nine months, imagine the amount of games that we have played in different scenarios, different contexts, different opponents. So we’ll adapt to the conditions tomorrow in the best possible way to be ourselves and win the game.
On whether Arsenal belong at this level…
I don’t take it for granted. We know the difficulty of it, we know how much we work for this and yeah, enjoy it, take the opportunity, embrace it because it’s very tough to be here.
On anger at Sky Sports moving Arsenal’s last home game to a Monday…
I’m not surprised. It’s the last home game of the season, and you want to play at the weekend. I think the game at the time and the date was set, and now it’s been changed. So yeah, it’s not ideal, especially for our supporters, but the TV [companies] have the right to do so, so they’ve done it. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to adapt to that as well and play our game and try to have everybody in that stadium in the same manner, with the same energy, because obviously we know what is at stake.
On whether Timber will return before the end of the season…
We don’t know yet, he’s doing some stuff on the pitch at the moment but we need to get the gears up and be able to do more things before he can compete with us.
On Arsenal not scoring enough goals from the chances they create…
We have to do better, and obviously, the more we can take shots, the quality of those shots. It was a great example [Eze’s goal] against Newcastle of what can happen. We want to improve in every department, but at the same time, to be where we are sitting here tonight, you have to be exceptional or one of the top four teams in Europe to be here. Imagine how difficult that is.
On Arsenal needing to return to London with a good result…
That’s what we want to do. We have prepared the game to win it, there’s no question about that, to be ourselves and do what we do constantly with our opponent and then, okay, let’s see what the game throws, the level that we can show, the quality we can show, and hopefully that’s going to be the case.
On Simeone’s impact at Atletico…
I think there’s just a lot of work he’s carried out. He’s just transformed the club in 15 years in terms of results and the way he’s done it. We are not just talking about anything. I think I’ve always had great admiration for these kinds of people and, again, he’s given a lot to his players. He’s very connected to the club and he’s given a lot to the club. He’s an absolute role model.
On Atletico’s threat and what concerns him…
I’m just concerned about my players. We’ve got different tools in different phases of play to punish their opponents, for example, not to punish us. And this is what we do with Atletico. We would do it a different way with other opponents and different players. This is going to be a beautiful game where we would like to impose our playing style and our philosophy.
On the storms predicted for tomorrow and what the pitch will be like…
It’s good right now, and we won’t know what will happen tomorrow. So, we will just adapt to this context. And the good thing is that during the last 10 months, we’ve been playing in different contexts, different pitches and the team are ready to adapt to that.
On having beaten Atletico previously and what kind of game he expects…
Well, a different one to the one you’re bringing up now because during the knockout rounds, they’ve been very dominant, they’ve achieved great results and of course, we want to play a good game, a convincing one for us in order to play a good second leg at home.
On the Atletico player that most concerns him…
They are very strong at different ends [of the pitch] otherwise they wouldn’t be where they are right now. And of course, how connected they are, the energy they create in the stadium, how they believe in it, how experienced they are because they’ve done it before. We are at this match where different things could happen, and when we come to this level, the details are very important, and it will be no different tomorrow.
On not falling into the trap that Barcelona fell into…
We just need to understand what happens in those contexts, how they activate themselves, and we’ve just identified different patterns. We know we are capable of identifying them. We will try to avoid that, and we will try to create chances for ourselves.
On Simeone saying Atletico are better in attack than defence this year…
I think they do a lot of things very well, and this is the reason why they’re here.