Wenger “sad” as Atletico kill bid for fairytale Arsenal ending

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger refused to conceal his devastation after his side succumbed to a resolute Atletico Madrid in the Europa League semi-final second leg, killing his hopes of a fairytale ending to his Gunners reign.

Former tormentor-in-chief Diego Costa, a constant menace to Arsenal while wearing the blue of Chelsea, haunted the north Londoners once more as he netted the only goal of the game in first-half stoppage time.

Defeat means there will be no glorious send-off for Wenger, no final on 16 May against Marseille in his native France, and no Champions League football for Arsenal next season. The Frenchmans final match in charge of the Gunners will now be at Huddersfield on 13 May.

“Its sad, very, very, very sad – I am very sad tonight – but, unfortunately, you have to go through that in our game,” said Wenger. “It can be very cruel. Sometimes it is very nice but the suffering is very strong tonight.

“Tonight was similar to the first leg. Our performance was very good and we created dangerous situations but in the two boxes we missed something. We feel over the two games we did enough to go through.”

Atleti threatened after only six minutes when a rampaging Costa bullied Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal but could only find the side-netting when bearing down on goalkeeper Jan Oblak.

Moments later the Gunners were rocked by an injury to skipper Koscielny as he fell to the ground, with no other player around him, in clear distress. Wenger confirmed afterwards the 32-year-old had suffered a suspected ruptured Achilles.

Koke and Antoine Griezmann fired wide in a stodgy opening period before Arsenals defensive frailties were exposed shortly before half-time when the latter played in Costa, who stole a march on Hector Bellerin and planted a shot beyond stopper David Ospina.

Arsenal continued to dominate possession, probe and work the wide areas in the second half and they had their moments as Granit Xhaka was denied by Oblak and substitute Henrikh Mkhitaryan fired over.

However, Arsenal could only muster one shot on target. Ultimately, Atleticos formidable defensive credentials came to the fore as they kept a 12th successive clean sheet at the Wanda Metropolitano.

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