Arteta: Cup success crucial for Gunners

Mikel Arteta believes winning the FA Cup would mark ‘a turning point’ in Arsenal’s history and says their draw at Bayern Munich can spur them on for the remainder of the season.

Arsene Wenger’s side exited the Champions League at the last 16 stage on Tuesday night as a 1-1 draw at the Allianz Arena was not enough to prevent a 3-1 aggregate defeat to a side who are sweeping all before them at home and abroad. But the club’s focus is now firmly on ending their nine-year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup — while Arteta, pictured right, also believes strong showings against Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City could give them a chance of winning the Premier League.

Arsenal face Wigan at Wembley in their FA Cup semi-final on April 12, and with the other semi-final being contested by Hull City and Sheffield United they are odds-on favourites to claim their first piece of silverware since 2005. And Arteta says it is impossible to underestimate the impact that would have on a club that has struggled to compete at the top level since making the decision to build the Emirates Stadium.

“I think it would be a turning point for the club because such a long time we don’t win anything,” said the Spaniard.

“It gives you a lift, gives you belief that you can start to go in the right direction and hopefully we can do it. We know we are favourites at the moment. We know that puts more pressure on us but we are happy with the win in the quarter-final. Would we love to win a trophy? Yes, you’re right. We have a great chance, still a month to go and some really tough games coming up.

“That’s why it is important to get some momentum and get there with the belief and in good form. We are still in two competitions. We want to fight for the league, for sure, and we have a great chance in the FA Cup as well. So we need to enjoy the moment and make the most of it because I think we can do something good.”

Arteta says Arsenal’s resilience in Munich will stand them in good stead. Wenger had admitted before it would have been his greatest night in Europe if Arsenal had overcome Bayern, but Bastian Schweinsteiger’s strike virtually killed the tie, although Lukas Podolski briefly gave Arsenal hope.

But Arteta was pleased after a draw against a side who had won 30 of their previous 32 games.

“Every team that has come here recently has been battered five or six nil so that’s the last thing you want with the experience we had a couple of weeks ago at Liverpool [when Arsenal lost 5-1].

“I think it’s encouraging, I think the second half was very good. We can take a lot of positives. Those players... we can be happy and take some positives. We knew that no one had done it (gone through) before bringing the result that we had brought from London but we had to try.

“Even when they scored we kept believing and scored the goal from Luka and we had some situations where if we could make a better decision with the last pass we would have got the second one. And the game was on.

“But you are talking about probably the better team in Europe at the moment. Now we have a massive game [against Tottenham on Sunday]. We have to recover, we have two massive games away from home, Tottenham and Chelsea. We have to get the legs back and focus and take positives and try to get a good run.”

Uefa has confirmed it has opened disciplinary proceedings against Bayern after a banner supporting Kosovo’s application to join Fifa was unveiled within the Allianz Arena, while they are considering whether to take action regarding a homophobic banner targeted at Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil.