Martin Ødegaard, the captain, urged Arsenal to take lessons from their loss to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup semi-final and turn them into a driving force.
He acknowledged that he was still holding out hope for a comeback at St. James’ Park and that he was just inches away from changing the tide when his shot struck the post.
But after Newcastle scored a goal right away, Ødegaard acknowledged that Arsenal didn’t perform well enough in both matches. “It’s a tough one to take, it’s frustrating,” he stated after the game.
We thought we could achieve our huge aim of making it to the final today, but I don’t think we deserved it based on the way we played the game and the two legs. We must examine Ourselves, improve and learn from it.
“We had a few decent chances to score in the first half, and perhaps the outcome of the game would have been slightly different.
However, we allowed them to run a little too easily a few times. They clearly had the goal, and they had a few memorable moments there.
“We could have performed better, and we’re all disappointed. Even though we are a young team, we have played here a lot and in important games, so I still believe we could have performed better. However, we must now learn from our mistakes and move on.”