Laia Codina has reflected on a difficult loss to Bayern Munich in the Champions League and how our squad are rallying ahead of this weekend's London derby against Chelsea.
Our defender spoke pitchside after full-time in Munich and here is everything she had to say:
on where the game was lost...
I think, to be honest, the set pieces made the difference. If we want to be a big team and we want to go through in the Champions League, it’s something that we have to work on. Because if I'm not wrong, four of the five goals came from set pieces - three corners and one throw-in. That made a big difference and it’s about details. They won this battle.
on whether it's especially disappointing considering our first-half performance...
Yeah, 100%. We spoke about that at half time and things were going well. We had the ball, we had our chances. That is something that is always difficult to have, especially away against a team like Bayern. But when they scored, we had to keep coming from behind.
It’s tough but we have to move on. Football is like this. On Saturday, we have another game against Chelsea. Now we are disappointed - it’s not the result we wanted and it’s not the feeling we wanted ahead of Saturday. But why not? We have another opportunity on Saturday. We are still in the group stage. Next Wednesday, we have another game at home at the Emirates, so it’s in our hands now to change it.
on showing what we're about on Saturday against Chelsea...
Sticking together is what we want, of course. We came from another tough game on Sunday against Everton. Today, I think we were a better team but it went wrong. It is what it is. Football is like this. Accept that. Fresh possibilities. As a defender, I don’t want to go back home with five goals against me but Saturday, we are going to go again. It’s in our hands and we need to be a better team if we want to go further in the Champions League and battle for the league.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.