Ostersunds FK defender Samuel Mensah has lamented on his team’s performance after their defeat to Arsenal in the Europa League round of 32 on Thursday evening.
The Red and Black lads suffered a 3-0 defeat in front of their boisterous fans at the Jamtkraft Arena courtesy goals from Nacho Monreal, an own goal by Sotiris Papagiannopoulos before Mezut Ozil rounded off the score line for the Gunners.
Mensah, who was deployed as part of a three-man midfield, could not comprehend what went wrong for his side in the match during an interview with GHANAsoccernet.com.
“I cannot say I’m not disappointed with the result because I believe we could have taken something from the game,” Mensah said.
“But you cannot take anything away from Arsenal also because they were really good on the ball but we had our moments which I felt we could have taken advantage of but we failed. We gave them far too much respect and in competitions like this, you’ll get punished and that’s exactly what we got.”
“I’m disappointed we couldn’t reward the fans with at least a point from the match because they cheered us on from the start and even when the going got tough, they were with us,” the former Right to Dream Academy defender added.
“To turn the result in the second leg will be difficult but experience has thought me that anything is possible in football, so we’ll go there with positive mentality.”
In stoppage time, Graham Potter’s side had a great opportunity to reduce the deficit from the penalty spot but Tom Pettersson’s fine strike was palmed away by goalkeeper David Ospina.
“It’s just unfortunate that Tom didn’t hit the back of the net because I thought he hit the ball well but Ospina read his direction. It could have reduced the score line but it wasn’t to be so we have to move on,” he concluded.
The return leg is scheduled to come off on Thursday, February 22 at the Emirates Stadium.
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