Arsenal come to terms with exit

Again a late goal undid Arsenal FC's UEFA Champions League hopes - and this year it was in the Round of 16 rather than the final.

'Very disappointed'
PSV Eindhoven defender Alex left it until the 83rd minute to cancel out his earlier own goal and seal a 2-1 aggregate win, leaving Fredrik Ljungberg to rue another near miss in this competition. "We are very disappointed," he said. "It ended up a bit unfortunately, they scored at the end. We were a bit nervy. We needed to be a bit disciplined and had to concentrate for 90 minutes, but we didn't and got knocked out."

Missed chances
For the second time in a fortnight against PSV, Arsenal had most of the play but were unable to turn their dominance into a lead that would have left the visitors with no way back. "They are a big side, but we felt we should win the game and go through," Ljungberg continued. "We had some half-chances, but we conceded late on and it killed us. We had opportunities to kill the game, we didn't and we eased off a bit."

'Difficulty to take'
Ljungberg's colleague on the left side last night, defender Gaël Clichy, concurred. "It's difficult to take," he said. "But if we lose, we didn't do enough. We could have scored more goals and that was the problem tonight." Even though Arsenal are destined to end a second season running without a trophy, Clichy insists their youthful squad can learn from this: "We have plenty of time, so many young players, but tonight was about qualifying. We may be the best team in the world in two years' time, but tonight we didn't qualify."