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Christian Norgaard sends Arsenal squad clear message amid double trophy hunt
Christian Norgaard believes Arsenal should not dwell on the FA Cup defeat to Southampton
View ImageMikel Arteta’s men suffered an almighty shock at St Mary’s as the Championship play-off hopefuls’ intensity and courage paid dividends in a famous 2-1 quarter-final triumph.
Substitute Shea Charles’ late strike sent Southampton to the semi-finals and left Arsenal with some soul searching as the shock defeat compounded their Carabao Cup final loss to Manchester City a fortnight ago.
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The Gunners will attempt to get back to winning ways in Lisbon in Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg against Sporting, before the runaway league leaders host Bournemouth in a key game on Saturday.
Experienced midfielder Norgaard said: “The message is to have a positive body language, to talk with your team-mates, with the coaching staff. Now is not the time to go with our heads down for too long.
“It’s fine to be frustrated tonight and also tomorrow to analyse what went wrong, but then we also have to look forward because there are so many big games coming up for this club.”
Arsenal need to shake off their first back-to-back defeats of the season to avoid further damage to what has until recently been a memorable campaign. “Disappointing evening,” Norgaard told club media. “We all had our hopes high to win and go back to Wembley, but yeah, that’s not the case.
“Sorry to disappoint so many travelling fans, they created an amazing atmosphere and, yeah, today was not good enough.”
Injury-disrupted Arsenal only managed to threaten periodically at St Mary’s, where few would argue that the hosts did not deserve to progress to Wembley. Ross Stewart coolly struck Saints ahead and Leo Scienza hit the crossbar shortly before Viktor Gyokeres levelled, only for super sub Charles to spark bedlam with a fine finish five minutes from time.
Goalscorer, and boyhood Arsenal fan, Stewart said: “It’s just pure joy and elation, an incredible night for the club to beat a team of Arsenal’s calibre in the manner that we did. I thought we were excellent. It’s an incredible night for the club and there were some good celebrations in the dressing room – we’ll enjoy tonight.
“It’s a great occasion to look forward to, but we’ve got a lot of league business that we’ve got to take care of, and the gaffer has just reinforced that – starting Tuesday we’ve got to be ready to go for another tough game.”
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