‘We are conceding too many simple goals’; Mikel Arteta reacts after Arsenal's 2-2 draw against Sporting CP

Reaction from Mikel Arteta at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon on Thursday after his Arsenal side were held to a 2-2 draw by Sporting in the opening leg of their Europa League last 16 tie.

William Saliba opened the scoring for the visitors midway through the first half, Goncalo Inacio equalised for the hosts on 34 minutes and Paulinho put Sporting ahead ten minutes after the restart.

Arsenal levelled just after the hour, Granit Xhaka's attempted through ball deflecting past Sporting goalkeeper Adan for an unfortunate own goal against Hidemasa Morita.

"I said that when you concede two poor goals like we did today away from home in Europe, it's very difficult to get a very positive result that we expected it. I think the game had different phases, especially because we gave too many balls away, too many simple balls in our own half. And we gave them hope and we gave them capacity to have these transition moments which they are good at. In other moments we had total control of the game. We lost a little bit of threat today especially with the four players we were missing in our front line. So some positives because we showed again our resilience to get back on the game. But we need to defend our box much better and we are going to be better in the return leg to beat them."

On the team not playing at their best and the second leg.

"No, we're not and today we had to go against a few issues that we had in the last few days. We have lost a few players, we lost three out of our four strikers, but in this competition if you want to go through you will have to go through difficult moments. We knew that, we are alive. Everything is still to be played at the Emirates. Hopefully we will play better and deserve to win the game."

The return leg in London is scheduled for 16th March.