{"id":729,"date":"2018-05-04T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=729"},"modified":"2018-05-04T10:17:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T08:17:19","slug":"atleticos-diego-costa-denies-arsenals-arsene-wenger-european-final-farewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=729","title":{"rendered":"Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s Diego Costa denies Arsenal\u2019s Ars\u00e8ne Wenger European final farewell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Ars\u00e8ne Wenger, there will be no happy ending. \u201c<em>Rumbo hacia Lyon<\/em>,\u201d (road to Lyon) read the huge banner unfurled by the most boisterous section of\u00a0Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u00a0supporters before this victory. Diego Simeone\u2019s team are, as promised, on their way to the Europa League final and whatever tributes come for Wenger over the next 10 days \u2013 the promise of a statue, perhaps, or even a stand named in his honour at the Emirates \u2013 it will not be how he wanted the story to finish.<\/p>\n<p>All that is left now is Sunday\u2019s home game against Burnley, followed by the trips to Leicester and Huddersfield, and perhaps it is a fitting end to a season of drift. Arsenal came up short, as they often do against elite teams, and when they needed something special in the second half, losing to Diego Costa\u2019s goal, they did not have the personnel to deliver it. Arsenal barely summoned a chance and the late onslaught that might have been anticipated never really materialised. There was only one goal in it \u2013 yet\u00a0Arsenal\u00a0were obliging opponents for a team with Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s defensive expertise.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-2 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-dead--item rich-link--pillar-sport\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__header\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>This was Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s 12th successive clean sheet at this stadium \u2013 an incredible run that goes back to 20 January and covers 1,097 minutes in play \u2013 and that parsimonious defending was the difference over the two legs. Atl\u00e9tico were brilliantly efficient at the back whereas it is more than 10 years since the same could be said of Wenger\u2019s teams. He has never won a European trophy and, yes, it would have been a lovely way to go out after 22 years as Arsenal\u2019s manager. Atl\u00e9tico, however, give the impression that fairytale endings are just that \u2013 for fairytales.<\/p>\n<p>On top of everything else, Arsenal also lost Laurent Koscielny to a ruptured achilles tendon, an injury that will have ramifications for France. Koscielny, who has been nursing a long-standing problem, went down in such a way the seriousness of the injury immediately became apparent.<\/p>\n<p>He pounded the turf in pain and frustration and his reaction was of a man who must have known straight away what it meant for his hopes of playing in the World Cup. Koscielny was supposed to retire after this summer\u2019s tournament; instead, he will not be involved with Didier Deschamps\u2019s team in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Hypothetical now, but perhaps Arsenal might have coped better with Costa and Antoine Griezmann if their captain had lasted longer than seven minutes. Then again, Koscielny was badly at fault for Griezmann\u2019s goal in the first leg. Griezmann had another fine game and when the two Atl\u00e9tico forwards combined at the end of the first half, in the time added on for Koscielny\u2019s treatment, it led to the game\u2019s decisive moment.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--inline2\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--inline ad-slot--offset-right ad-slot--inline2 ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot inline2\" data-name=\"inline2\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-mobile=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|300,274|fluid\" data-desktop=\"1,1|2,2|300,250|620,1|620,350|300,274|fluid|300,600\" data-google-query-id=\"CKqftPzN69oCFcKVdwodUoQIYA\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/football\/article\/ng_6__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\">The goal showed the qualities of both players. Griezmann\u2019s pass was beautifully weighted and once Costa had got behind H\u00e9ctor Beller\u00edn it was always going to be difficult for the Arsenal right-back to make up for his positional error. Beller\u00edn might have been faster but Costa was stronger, shielding the ball with his body while expertly holding off his opponent. David Ospina, who had endured a nervous opening 45 minutes, advanced from his line and Costa swept the ball past Arsenal\u2019s goalkeeper with a confident left-foot finish.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Until the point the Arsenal supporters, positioned in the most vertiginous levels of this sweeping new-build stadium, must have been pleasantly surprised by the way their team had set about the game.<\/p>\n<p>All the same, Wenger\u2019s men had a lot of the ball without doing a great deal with it. Mesut \u00d6zil, for instance, was prominently involved without being able to pick out a killer pass. Atl\u00e9tico have conceded only 18 goals in 35 La Liga appearances this season and Arsenal needed more from their attacking players. Danny Welbeck and Alexandre Lacazette were disappointing.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half Arsenal were attacking the end where their supporters were gathered and there were some encouraging moments early on. Granit Xhaka\u2019s low shot brought the first noteworthy save from Jan Oblak and there were even a few moments of carelessness from the home team\u2019s defenders.<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2018\/may\/03\/atletico-madrid-arsenal-europa-league-semi-final-match-report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Ars\u00e8ne Wenger, there will be no happy ending. \u201cRumbo hacia Lyon,\u201d (road to Lyon) read the huge banner unfurled by the most boisterous section of\u00a0Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u00a0supporters before this victory. Diego Simeone\u2019s team are, as promised, on their way to the Europa League final and whatever tributes come for Wenger over the next 10 days [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}