Sporting CP vs Arsenal: Arteta hails 'finishers' for UCL tiumph

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta staunchly reiterated the importance of their substitutes, whom he calls finishers, after Kai Havertz came off the bench to help the Gunners beat Sporting CP.

The Premier League leaders beat their Portuguese opponent 1-0 at the Jose Avalade Stadium, securing a slender advantage ahead of the second-leg clash at the Emirates.

The 44-year-old expressed elation after triumph; despite the difficulty in achieving the result, he praised his team’s effort.

"Very happy to win away from home in the quarter-finals of the Champions League against a team that have not lost at home for I don't know how long. I think the last time was probably in Europe as well; that shows the difficult of it,” he said.

Arteta admitted that he was concerned the match would end in a stalemate after they reached stoppage time, failing to breach Leões. However, substitutes Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli combined to score the winner.

"Yes, because when we got into the final third, and we sat there, we missed the final bit,” he said about thinking they might not score. “We had to be a little bit crisper, faster, more efficient to break them down when they had that block. 

“We had a goal disallowed, and there were two or three occasions where we were close, but we lacked that final pass. In the end, a magic moment from the finishers win us the game."