Lookman scores hat-trick as Atalanta stun Leverkusen to win Europa League title
Ademola Lookman scored an exceptional hat-trick as Atalanta put an end to Bayer Leverkusen's 51-game unbeaten run to win the UEFA Europa League title.
English giants Arsenal lost their UEFA Europa League last-32 second leg to Swedish minnows Ostersunds FK 1-2 at the Emirates and while the North Londoners still progressed due to a 4-2 aggregate win, Gunners defender Calum Chambers admitted that their performance left a lot to be desired.
“It wasn’t the result (we wanted). We made it hard for ourselves. First half we got off to a sloppy start and we know that. It wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t our standards but in the second half we came out, we fought and we dug in. We got the result,” Chambers told Arsenal Player after the tie.
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First-half goals from Hosam Aiesh and Ken Sama had given the visitors a shock 2-0 lead but Arsenal managed to recover somewhat as fullback Sead Kolasinac would strike early in the second-half to give the Gunners some breathing space and the North Londoners held on to reach the last-16.
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“We went in at half-time and there were some words said,” admitted Chambers as he continued, “Everyone knew that was a sloppy start, so we came out in the second half and we didn’t turn it on, but we gave a better performance”.
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With a 3-0 advantage from the first leg, many felt that the Gunners had the tie in the bag but Chambers brushed aside suggestions that they didn’t take the second leg seriously as he stressed, “We treat every game as we normally do. We prepare the same and on the night we got off to a sloppy start and we paid for that. But no, you’ve got to prepare for every game the same way and we gave a good reaction at half-time and we came out and we fought.
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Chambers, however, was hopeful of the Gunners making a deep run in the continental competition as he added, “With the team that we’ve got, we need to aiming far in this competition. We’ve got a talent squad, so we need to learn from that sloppy start tonight and progress on to the next one”.
The Gunners have no time to reflect on their loss as they have the small matter of a Carabao Cup final with Manchester City on Sunday to prepare for.
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