Mikel Arteta makes Champions League vow as Arsenal discover quarter-final opponents

Arsenal will take on holders Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals next month, the same stage where Mikel Arteta’s side were knocked out last season

Mikel Arteta celebrated Arsenal reaching back-to-back Champions League quarter-finals for the fist time in 15 years and warned: “Now we want to make the next step.”

The Gunners, holding an impregnable 7-1 lead from the first leg, coasted through their phoney war to book a mouth-watering clash with holders Real Madrid in the last eight. And Arteta admitted: “You have to be at your best for the two games for every minute and don’t give anything away – because they will take it.”

Arsenal face an impossible 15-point gap to bridge in the title race, but they are now just five games from Champions League glory. Arteta said: “We have to value that and recognise it’s very difficult to do. Now we want to make the next step. It’s very difficult but we are capable to do it.

“It is important for us because we want to win – and to win, you have to go through the stages, and because the club needs it. We are a club that want to be the best and want to be competing with the best in the world. To do that you have to constantly be there. It’s very difficult but we’ve done it for two years in a row and we have the capacity and ability to do it even better.”

Former England winger Raheem Sterling dazzled on a rare start, setting up Oleksandr Zinchenko’s superb opener and Declan Rice’s first-half header. But the Gunners were twice pegged back, and Sterling’s yellow card in stoppage time, for a poor tackle on Johan Bakayoko, means he is suspended for the home leg of next month’s duel with Real.

Arteta said: “I’m very happy for him and other individuals who haven’t had a lot of minutes recently. His final action was chasing back, when he was booked, but that’s the kind of player we want to see.”

Will Arsenal beat Real Madrid to reach the Champions League semi-finals? Give us your prediction in the comments section.

Real’s penalty shootout was laced with VAR controversy over Julian Alvarez’s disallowed spot-kick because he touched the ball with both feet as he slipped. But there were no such dramas for the Gunners, whose 9-3 aggregate win was a formality.

And Arteta added: “Obviously, with result from first leg it wasn’t going to be full but had to continue and do the work in the manner we want to finish the competition.

“Unfortunately didn’t win the game, but we decided to make rotation in the second half because you could see we were tired. Overall I’m very happy because we are for the second consecutive season into the quarter-finals, which is something we haven’t done for many years.”

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