Sporting Lisbon captain Morten Hjulmand claimed Arsenal’s delaying tactics contributed to last night’s ‘boring’ Champions League stalemate.
Mikel Arteta was keen to praise his side who made club history by progressing to the semi finals of Europe’s elite club competition for the second leg in a row after protecting their 1-0 first leg advantage.
In truth, however, it was another disjointed performance, particularly in attacking sense, and did little to suggest they are capable of producing the sort of display that would get their faltering title challenge back on track at Manchester City this weekend.
Sporting, meanwhile, were left to rue their own failings in the reverse fixture last week, as well as the chances they spurned towards the end of the first half at Emirates Stadium, most notably the opportunity that Geny Catamo volleyed against the post.
The Portuguese champions rarely threatened in the second period as Arsenal’s defence held firm, but Hjumland felt his side’s cause wasn’t helped by Arsenal taking far too long over their set piece preparations.
Asked if the best team on the night progressed, the Denmark international said: ‘I think it was an even game today the impact of the first game that we lost made it more difficult to go to the Emirates and win, especially when don’t often lose at home we knew it would be difficult here.
‘But the game had low intensity and no rhythm, zero goal and I would say boring.’
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Pressed on what made the game such a disjointed affair, he added: ‘I think a lot stops during the game so we couldn’t get the rhythm that we wanted to. A little bit boring.
‘If I was a viewer from outside 0-0, also the first game 1-0 it’s not the way Sporting wants to show itself. We want to score goals, create chances and we didn’t do it today.
‘During the game I felt a lot of stops, especially during set-pieces and it takes a lot of time out of the game.
‘When we did get the rhythm we did create a lot of chances, especially in the first half. But at the end we didn’t create enough to win the game to be honest.’
While the other last eight ties were packed full of incident, goals and drama, this particular quarter final stood out like a sore thumb for all the wrong reasons.
Asked to compare Arsenal with the other teams who have made the semi finals, PSG, Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid, Hjumland said: ‘I prefer to speak about Sporting and compare them to other teams.’
With the overriding emotion from an Arsenal point of view one of relief, Arteta was keen to stress the positives of reaching the latter stages once again and with a tie against a side they have already comprehensively beaten this season to look forward to.
‘It’s a great night, I’m so proud of everybody at the club,’ said the Arsenal boss. ‘Thank you to our supporters for the manner in which they followed the team.
‘It’s the first time we’ve [reached the semi-finals consecutively] in 140 years, so that tells you the difficulty and magnitude of what we’ve done.
‘I think we don’t realise it now, but we’ll realise it in a few years, so don’t take for granted what we’ve done. It’s extremely difficult to achieve, and it’s never been achieved [by ourselves], so big gratitude to our players and everyone who’s contributed to achieving that.
‘We’re not perfect, we want to improve in every area, but we have two magical nights to play against Atletico and we’re certainly going to prepare well for that.
‘We’ll take things from [October’s meeting] and games they have played recently, but we’re going to have to go to Madrid, be ourselves, and compete in the manner we have – and then we’ll have a big chance to win it.’
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