Arteta's 'now or newer' half-time speech, Saka's strange view of the game and Gunners legend fuming

The match appeared to be slipping away from the Gunners as they were trailing 2-0, on top of that Dani Ceballos was sent off just before the hour mark.

However, fortunate Arsenal somehow managed to collect an away goal - Nicolas Pepe scored from the penalty spot to send Arsenal back to London with an acceptable 2-1 deficit.

Spanish manager of the Gunners revealed he had to give a massive speech to his squad in order to wake them up from the limbo they were in in the first 45 minutes.

'I said to them: 'We have an opportunity. It is a big challenge what we have ahead of us, but we have the opportunity to make it.

'But it has to be now. In the return leg it is going to be too late. We have to change it right now. If we are able to do that we are going to get here in a completely different position'.

'We still had another incident, which was the red card and playing with 10 men against this team, and the team went to a different level again and we got the goal.'

Emery's sweet revenge on Arsenal

A surprising decision by Arteta to play without a regular striker caused for the guests to struggle to create chances. Captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang came on late in the game having recently recovered from malaria and had a good chance to equalize.

Regardless, Arteta was justifying his tactics after the match.

'It is the way we prepared the game, it is the decision that I made, thinking that it was the best way to play,' Arteta said on the strikerless formation.

'But the game was changed after four minutes (with the first goal) so it is difficult to assess whether it would work or not.

'Conceding the set-piece (for Albiol's goal) as well changed it and after we have to approach it in a different way.

'(Aubameyang) was very unlucky because I think he slipped just before he took the shot and at the end it didn't go through. But that was a big, big chance obviously.'

Manchester United destroy Roma in an amazing second half

Arsenal's third semi-final of the Europa League in four years with only making it to the final once during that time. They were led to that one final by none other than their last night's rival Unai Emery.

Bad news kept coming as Dani Ceballos got sent off in the 57th minute. However, Nicolas Pepe equalized with a penalty. A penalty that Emery was not agreeing with.

'We need to keep our hopes high,' said former manager of Arsenal, PSG, Sevilla, Spartak moscow,...

'There are many circumstances that can affect you one way or another. After a good first half we went in 2-0 up, then they were dominating the game in the second half.

Lauren: "If you want to win the league, you have to fight with the same weapons"

'Then there was a key moment in the game with a penalty that is not a penalty, VAR should be able to give justice in such a clear-cut situation when a penalty was never a penalty.

'I'm unhappy about that - certain details escape your control, like the referee, and once the match is finished you put all the cards on the table and we should say that we won the first match.'

Arsenal will have to overturn the deficit at home turf if they want to reach the final and Bukayo Saka believes their second-half display showed they are better than their Spanish opponents.

'I think we definitely showed that we are better than them, even with 10 men we were dominating.' said Saka for BT Sport.

'It is just up to us, it is always up to us. We have a team full of quality players and when we play properly we can beat anyone and we showed that today.'

The 19-year-old Englishman criticized his team's lethargic performance in the first half.

'There are a lot of positives which all came in the second half. But it is the semi-final of the Europa League and to start the game like that makes it impossible to have a chance of scoring,' he added.

'We didn't create anything, we lost every duel, we were passive. It's really frustrating to look back on, but I'm happy we picked ourselves up in the second half and managed to score. We have given ourselves a chance at the Emirates.'

Arsenal's unwanted six

Arsenal former centre back Martin Keown, who made close to 400 appearances for the north London club, saw little to be happy about, especially regarding Ceballos and Arteta's tactical set-up.

'The risk he took not playing with a striker, it looked in disarray. Arsenal got away with one tonight. Bernd Leno makes a couple of saves when they (Villarreal) should be out of sight.

'Dani Ceballos has made a catalogue of mistakes in the Europa League. He looked out of his depth tonight. There was a huge hole in midfield which Emery exploited.

'It looked like the former manager was embarrassing the current boss, which must have been embarrassing for Arsenal's owners.'

Arsenal still pays Ozil 47.305.023 KSh a week!

Keown saw a lot of room for improvement ahead of the rematch that will happen in a week.

'The consistency has not been there. They (Arsenal) have to turn up for the home leg or bad things will happen.'

'Arsenal are still in tie but could have been out. It was how it's been all season, really turbulent as a Gunners fan.

'It was a huge risk not to play with centre forward. When you listen to him (Arteta), it links to philosophy. Tactics are going to be so important next week, maybe they'll do something on the break next week.

The Invincibles team up with the Spotify owner to buy Arsenal

'If the Arsenal that turned up in the second leg against Sparta Prague turns up then I am confident.

'If anyone can, Arsenal can. But Arteta has to play the correct XI. You have to learn fast or you don't survive.'