Villarreal midfielder Manu Trigueros claims Arsenal are lucky to be “alive” and reckons his side “should have killed them” on Thursday night.
The first leg of Europa League semi-final clash appeared to be getting away from the Gunners as first-half goals from Trigueros and Raul Albiol preceded a Dani Ceballos red card just before the hour.
But Nicolas Pepe converted from the spot to send Arsenal home with a 2-1 deficit, Villarreal having also been reduced to 10 men late on following the dismissal of former Tottenham man Etienne Capoue.
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Trigueros brought down Bukayo Saka for the Gunners penalty but he wasn’t completely convinced it should’ve been awarded.
The Villarreal man told AS (via Sport Witness): “My feeling is that he hits me with his foot. I have to see it again, but…”
Trigueros thinks Villarreal did enough on the night to kill Mikel Arteta’s side off ahead of the second leg next week.
“They have escaped us alive. It’s clear that we have won and it is a good result, but seeing how the game went, we should have killed them,” Trigueros added.
“I wouldn’t know how to describe what happened; we’ve had clear chances but they’ve come across a penalty that… I haven’t seen it but my feet were still. They have had a lot of awards for what they have done.
“The manager’s approach has been very good, we have left them very few options in our goal, they get too big a prize because it is a short result for us. This is a semi-final of Europe.”
Having gone in two goals behind at the interval and seeing a penalty award overturned due to a VAR review deeming Pepe had handled the ball, Arteta told his players they needed to react before it was too late.
Asked about the mood in the dressing room at full-time, Arteta said: “Well comparing how it was at half-time, it is very different.
“I said to them: ‘We have an opportunity. It is a big challenge what we have ahead of us, but we have the opportunity to make it. But it has to be now. In the return leg it is going to be too late. We have to change it right now. If we are able to do that we are going to get here in a completely different position’.
“We still had another incident, which was the red card and playing with 10 men against this team, and the team went to a different level again and we got the goal.”
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