Arsenal defender says Champions League failure would be disaster
Arsenal defender Johan Djourou says that failure to reach the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League will prove a 'disaster' for the English Premier League club.
The Gunners were defeated 2-0 by Portuguese side Braga away from home when striker Leite Nascimento Matheus scored twice in the last 10 minutes of the match.
As a result, Braga have moved alongside Arsenal with nine points, leaving Arsene Wenger's men having to beat Partizan Belgrade in their final group game on 8 December to progress to the last 16 of the competition.
With Partizan yet to pick up a single point in the competition, Arsenal will be heavily favoured to win, but following the Braga game, Switzerland international Djourou is taking nothing for granted.
He told Arsenal's official website: "If Arsenal do not go to the next stage of the Champions League then it is a disaster. That should not happen. I won’t even think that is not going to happen. We have to think positively. The Braga game was a negative
but we have to think we’ll qualify.”
Though he was disappointed to lose the game to “silly goals” and the club have lost captain Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Eboue to injury, Djourou insisted that there were some positives to be taken from the match.
“They were silly goals and we should have avoided them. We could have killed the game before. Still there are some positives. We kept our team shape well and we did not do things too quickly because they were behind the ball waiting for us. We played the
Arsenal way but it did not pay this time.”
Arsenal will attempt to get their season back on track when they face Aston Villa in the EPL on Saturday 27 November.
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