Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli were left dejected after Arsenal exited the Europa League (Photo: BT Sport/Getty)
Martin Odegaard sent a reassuring message to Gabriel Martinelli after his penalty miss sent Arsenal out of the Europa League.
Martinelli played the whole 120 minutes and was involved in his side’s goal when his shot was parried by Antonio Adan into the path of Granit Xhaka who fired home to give the Gunners the lead.
But he could not repeat the magic in the shootout, with the Brazil forward the only player to have his spot-kick saved, allowing Nuno Santos to convert Sporting’s fifth penalty and send the Portuguese side into the quarter-finals.
Martinelli looked nervous ahead pf his penalty miss and understandably dejected afterward, but the 21-year-old will have the support of his teammates to help him recover.
‘We win and lose together. It doesn’t matter,’ Arsenal captain Odegaard told BT Sport when asked what he and his team would do to help Martinelli move on from the defeat.
‘When we’re winning everyone is happy, when we lose we have to pick up the spirit. We win and lose together.
‘We have to remember it’s been a great season, it’s a big blow to go out of this competition. But now we look forward to the league, that’s all we can do now.
‘I think we did enough in some periods of the game but most of the game we weren’t on the level we should be. We didn’t play our best football. It was a tight game in the end, it could have gone both ways.
‘They [Sporting] are a good team, we knew that, we were prepared. It was more about us today, we didn’t play the way we normally do with the same energy we normally do. Now we have to look forward.’
Martinelli is enjoying a fine season, having scored 12 goals and made two assists in 27 league games so far.
Up next for Arsenal, is a Premier League game against out of form Crystal Palace, where a win will put them eight points clear of Manchester City at the top of the table.
MORE : Arsenal crash out of Europa League on penalties to Sporting Lisbon
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Martinelli’s missed penalty sent Arsenal out of the Europa League.