Arteta on differences from last Sporting meeting | News

November 26, 2024

On Tuesday we return to the Estadio Jose Alvalade for the first time since the start of 2023, but Mikel Arteta says his team looks completely different to when they met Sporting in the Europa League.

In March 2023, we drew 2-2 in the first leg of the Europa League knockout round in the Portuguese capital before losing on penalties in the second leg. Five of our players who played in that first leg have now left the club and the coach said he recently watched the game again and barely recognized his team. He said it shows how much progress the team has made in the last 18 months or so.

“Usually it’s a good exercise to see the team from a few years ago and I watched both games again to get an understanding of that,” he said in his pre-match press conference.

“How we prepared them, what worked well and what didn’t, it’s difficult to recognize the team two years later. You tend to see and look at the game and other things differently, but it was good.

“In a way it seemed fair for a while, but here we are again. The good news is that we are now in a different competition, a competition that we really want to win, be dominant and important, and this is where we are.

“Every team continues to develop and it was incredible to talk about Sporting and their achievements. And we’ve also made a lot of progress compared to two years ago, so it will be a good test.”