Soccer
Why a win against Sporting is a must for beleaguered Arsenal
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Mikel Arteta wants to see "pure fire" from his Arsenal side against Sporting Lisbon in their Champions League quarter-final second leg today, but has the flame already been extinguished?
A month ago, the Gunners were riding high as the prospects of an unprecedented quadruple remained realistic. The North Londoners had built up a sizable lead in the Premier League, were on the verge of facing down their only title challengers in the Carabao Cup final, had just advanced to the fifth round of the FA Cup with a quarter-final against an EFL Championship side on deck, and were the only unbeaten side in the current edition of the Champions League.
Fast forward to today, and the tides have turned on Mikel Arteta's men after getting one-upped by Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final and falling to Southampton in the FA Cup.
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Add in their shrinking lead atop the Premier League, and it's been a rough few weeks for the club.Â
However, the Champions League unbeaten run continues for Arsenal after last week's 1-0 win in Lisbon — their lone victory across the last four games in all competitions — and now the Gunners return home to the Emirates Stadium with a chance to move on to the semi-finals.
It's something that the club needs more than they likely care to admit.
Advancement in the Champions League, preferably through a great performance on the pitch, is just what the doctor ordered for the troubled Gunners ahead of a massive Premier League showdown against Man City on the weekend. Given the adversity they've gone through, a win today is virtually a must for a club that has shown signs of fragility — both mentally and physically — during a stretch that demands strength.
"No fear. Pure fire," the Arsenal manager said on Tuesday when asked by reporters what he wants to see against Sporting. "Pure fire. That's what I want to see on the players, on the people, on myself. That's it.
"Go for it because the opportunity is unbelievable. We are in April, we have an incredible opportunity ahead of us. Let's confront it, let's go for it by really putting absolutely everything into it."
While Arteta says the right things, the situation is more fraught than he's letting on.
Injuries to key players continue to pile up amid a hyper-congested fixture list, the team's vaunted defence has given up two goals in three of their last four games and they've scored just three goals during that same four-game stretch. The set-piece mastery that has been so vital to Arsenal's success has all but vanished in recent weeks, exposing the team's lack of creativity and chance creation in open play.
It has all added up to a sobering period for Arsenal at a time when they expected to be celebrating at least one trophy while cruising towards others.
Still, Arteta insists the Gunners are well set up to finally cross the finish line ahead of their rivals.
"It's the second time that we are three years in a row in the quarter-finals of the Champions League," he said on Tuesday. "The second time in our history. For other clubs, that's the daily meal. For us, no. So we value a lot where we are.
"We have the opportunity tomorrow to go to the semi-finals. We are competing to win the Premier League and we are in a really strong position after 22 years without doing it.
"So we know the difficulty of that, but the beauty of it is that it's difficult, that it's challenging and that's why we are so willing to do it."
As much as their manager believes in his players, the fact remains that they've underperformed lately and have already squandered two of the trophies they were chasing — arguably the two easiest to win — and another setback today could do devastating damage to their campaign on the eve of their potentially season-defining trip to Manchester on the weekend.
The jokes about Arsenal's inability to finish the job have already grown louder, and an exit against Sporting today would only turn up the pressure to a level unseen by this current crop of players, and their manager.
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