Interview

'We've to go full gas from minute zero next week'

Pablo Mari has called on the team to learn from the mistakes they made against Villarreal in the second leg of our Europa League semi-final.

We made a slow start in Spain, and found ourselves 2-0 down by the half-hour mark - only for a crucial Nicolas Pepe penalty to keep the tie alive.

"I think it’s not a really bad result thinking about that we’re 2-0 down with one player less, I think a really good reaction from the team," Mari told Arsenal Media. 

"But for me I think for me we don’t have to wait to go into that situation to react. I think we have to learn about that and we have to put all the effort starting from minute zero next week to go to the final.

 

"I don’t know [why we made a sluggish start]. At the end you’re on the pitch and I try to help everybody, but we did some mistakes and I think this is key because they like to play football and they know when you do a mistake to go on that side and take the goals. So at the end we have to learn from that.

"They only had two chances and scored two goals, we have two and we scored one. At the end, semi-finals and quarters can be decided in the boxes, in attacking and in defence, and at the end they had more efficiency than us today and we have to change that [next] Thursday. 

"We have to go full gas from minute zero and go with everything to win the game."