Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, has reflected on their 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United in the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final.
The Gunners travelled to St James Park on Wednesday night trailing 2-0 from the first leg.
But the hosts scored in either half through Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon, to qualify for the final where they will face either Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur.
For Arsenal, they are now left in two competitions – Premier League and Champions League.
The squad will now travel to Dubai for a week to recharge their batteries, as they will not playing in the FA Cup this weekend.
Arteta, speaking in his press conference, said: “We’ve played so many games, every three days, and we knew that would be a high intensity. Emotionally it was a different game to believe we could get there. And before we expected, the game got away from us.
“We need to swallow this one – it’s a tough one. We had a lot of expectation. There is nothing we can do now – we had to do it on the pitch. Now we have to look forward. It’s a painful one. We have to recharge in Dubai as we have a lot to play for.
“Errors are part of football but we are usually super consistent and composed but today we gave them hope. We allowed them to run and we were vulnerable – they are a dangerous team when they could do that.
“We had so many expectations to turn this around but we didn’t get any momentum despite having some big moments in the first half. We didn’t capitalize and the next action they scored. The game then shifted. We then needed to stay cool to score a goal but we didn’t manage to do that. Then in the second half we struggled as the game went by and the game went away from us.
“When you want to win trophies you need to be effective in the boxes. We have played two games against them and haven’t [been effective]. Overall that was the main difference. Today we were a little unsettled when the game became more chaotic we are normally more composed but we lacked a bit of that.”