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MUNICH — Mikel Arteta says his Arsenal players are feeling the pain of their Champions League exit to Bayern Munich but insists it will not wreck their season.
The Gunners were knocked out at the quarterfinal stage as Joshua Kimmich scored the only goal in Wednesday’s second leg to hand Bayern a 3-2 win on aggregate.
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Arsenal face a quick turnaround with a trip to Wolves on Saturday as they aim to chase down Premier League leaders Manchester City with six games left to play.
Arteta said: “[The pain] is there. It’s not going to go away certainly tonight but I can guarantee you by tomorrow we’re fully focused on Wolves and everybody is lifted.
“What we still have to play for is beautiful. I said before it’s time to be next to these players. It’s easy to be behind them and praise the players and talk nice things when we win 10 in a row and one draw. The moment is now to be behind them and be next to them.”
Arsenal were edged out by a Bayern display in which their experience and knowhow came to the fore in a tie settled by a few key moments.
Arteta admitted afterwards that it may take several years for his players to learn the same street-smarts having only returned to Champions League football this season for the first time since 2017.
“We haven’t played this competition for seven years and we haven’t been in this stage for 14 years,” said Arteta.
“There’s a reason for it. We want to do everything fast forward, super quick in one season. I think we have the capacity and the quality to be in the semifinal because the margins are very small.
“Those margins are coming from something else that maybe we don’t have yet. We have to learn it. When you look historically it took other clubs seven, eight or 10 years to do it. Today that’s not going to make us feel better that’s for sure.”