Injury-hit Arsenal should move on from Europa loss, focus fully on Premier League: Mikel Arteta

Mikel Arteta has urged Arsenal to move on from their Europa League elimination and put all their "energy and focus" on the final 11 Premier League games.

Sporting Lisbon defeated Arsenal 5-3 on penalties at the Emirates Stadium after an extraordinary long-range goal from Pedro Goncalves cancelled out Granit Xhaka's opener, levelling the tie 3-3 on aggregate in a second-leg Round of 16 clash.

Arteta wants Arsenal to focus fully on Premier League

Arteta now wants the Gunners to quickly turn their focus to their Premier League clash with Crystal Palace on Sunday at home.

"The disappointment is not going to go away. The disappointment is there now, but it brings clarity. There are 11 Premier League games to play and the next final is against Crystal Place. We have to recover and put all our energy and focus there, play better than today and put the same effort as today and win," Arteta told reporters.

Chasing their first Premier League title since the 2003-04 season, Arsenal are at the top of the league table with 66 points from 27 matches. The Emirates side is five points ahead of second-placed Manchester City and 16 points ahead of third-placed Manchester United.

The loss to Sporting Lisbon was bitter in another way to Arsenal as they lost Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba to injuries in the first half, with the former leaving the Emirates Stadium on crutches. Arteta described Tomiyasu's condition as "serious."

"Huge blow. We really wanted to go through and fight in the competition and go for it and today we tried for 120 mins and penalties and it wasn't enough. The game started difficult, we lost Tomi early in the game, then we lost Saliba and that left us with really difficult game management because we only had that window to make subs and a few players could not play the 90 minutes," added Arteta.

Speaking further about Arsenal's performance on Thursday against the Portuguese club, Arteta said his side did not find their rhythm and flow and gave away too many spaces.

"Tomiyasu looks pretty serious from his reaction and what he said to me, but it's very early and difficult to know. Willy, I don't know. He had some discomfort and he could not carry on, so we had to take him out," said Arteta.

The latest game against Sporting ended as a nightmare for Gabriel Martinelli, whose penalty miss proved costly as the Lisbon-based side capitalised to win the shootout. But Arteta expects him to bounce back in the same way as his teammate Bukayo Saka following his missed spot kick for England in the Euro 2020 final against Italy.

Arsenal's latest injury setbacks

Earlier in the season, Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag claimed that Arsenal have been able to do well because they have been free of injuries. In regards to that, Arteta said that he and his side have managed injuries well in the ongoing campaign and is hoping to do that again after suffering the latest injury setbacks.

"We've been carrying injuries throughout the season. We had Emile out for four months, we had Gabriel Jesus out for four months, Alex [Oleksandr Zinchenko] for two and a half months, Thomas [Partey] for a month and a half, Eddie [Nketiah] for a month and a half. We had quite a lot of injuries already but we dealt with that," said Arteta.

The only club in the Premier League to have won all their last five fixtures, Arsenal will look to continue their streak ahead of their crucial game against Crystal Palace. It is their final game before the international break and Arteta would want his side to end on a high by securing all three points on Sunday.