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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Samuel Meade

Bernd Leno details Arsenal dressing room reaction to "nervous" Olympiakos tie

Bernd Leno has slammed his Arsenal team-mates for "unnecessarily suffering" as he bemoaned their "nervous" atmosphere.

The Gunners lost 1-0 to Olympiakos in the Europa League, but managed to progress following a 3-1 first-leg win.

Mikel Arteta's side made things hard for themselves however with Youssef El-Arabi scoring after 50 minutes.

The Greek side would've required two more goal to knock Arsenal out, but it still caused alarm bells to ring.

Leno has been particularly scathing recently as he hit out at the atmosphere earlier in the second.

And the German has again appeared to call his team-mates conduct into question.

Bernd Leno bemoaned the atmosphere in the Arsenal camp (REUTERS)

He said: "I think we suffered today and it was not necessary.

"I think because in the first 15 or 20 minutes we controlled the game but then we’ve made too many easy mistakes and in the second half we conceded the goal and then everybody was nervous.

"We made it hard for ourselves and, like I said, it was not necessary. In the dressing room it was quiet because everybody knows that it was not a good performance from us.

"We cannot change it anymore but the positive thing is that it was a warning.

The Gunners progressed despite their defeat (AFP via Getty Images)

‘We need to be 100% in every game. If we play like today then we won’t reach anything this season.

"I think there are only very good teams in the quarter-finals and we need two perfect games to go to the semi-finals and two more games to go to the final.

"The Europa League is very important for us This is probably the closest way to go to the Champions League and also to win a big European trophy so we need to step up.

"We need to have the motivation to win every game, cut out the easy mistakes and go through to the final and hopefully have a big final at the end of the season."

Arsenal will now face Slavia Prague in the quarter-finals of the competition.

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