Vivianne Miedema was unable to start in our Continental League Cup final defeat to Manchester City on Saturday.
The 22-year-old came off the bench in the 69th minute and asked questions of the City defence, but couldn’t break the deadlock.
We spoke to Montemurro after the final whistle - and he provided the following update:
on Miedema’s condition…
She’s okay. We had to make a decision whether to put her under the stress of 90 minutes, plus extra time and maybe penalties, and it went that way. She didn’t recover well from Wednesday night and we just felt that it was probably putting her at risk by playing her for the full amount. We told her she can have 30 minutes and she can just go for it for 30 minutes, and at least then it won’t be a massive load for her, so we know she’d be able to recover. She did great when she came on and she’s fine.
on the importance of forgetting this result and focusing on the league…
It’s huge. I’m not going to lie, Champions League qualification has been our focus this year. That’s not to disrespect this tournament or the FA Cup because we go into every tournament wanting to win it - and there’s absolutely no doubt about that. The reality is that we’ve positioned ourselves nicely in the league and it’s been our main focus. We’ve only lost two league games and two games in cups, so this team for what it’s going through is doing an amazing job. Everyone at Arsenal should be proud.
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