Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger explains surprise selection decision for Atletico Madrid game

As goodbyes go it wasn’t supposed to be quite like this.

But with eight minutes remaining Antoine Griezmann latched onto a long ball forward, shrugged off Laurent Koscielny and stabbed into the net at the second attempt to swing the tie Atletico’s way.

Having initially been ruled out of the Europa League semi-final first leg with a hamstring injury, Costa recovered sufficiently to travel to London with Atletico Madrid, the Mirror newspaper has reported. Simeone has revealed that the Spanish worldwide could start against the Gunners in the semifinals after only returning to training this week.

Even before that dismissal, Alexandre Lacazette and Danny Welbeck had passed up opportunities for Arsenal, and the chances continued to flow for the Londoners after Atleti boss Diego Simeone was sent to the stands for furiosly protesting a 12th minute decision.

“He will have no shortage of offers”, according to David Dean, Arsenal’s former vice-chairman who appointed Wenger in 1996.

The Frenchman will be banking on home form to take a good advantage over Atletico from the first leg.

Oblak is already one of the best goalkeepers in world football after three excellent seasons with Atletico.

Wilshere also rued the missed chances for Arsenal, who are playing in their first European semi-final in nine years. And we were not clinical enough and we gave unfortunately a goal away, which puts you in a very hard position.

“It’s frustrating, but we had to not force it”, he added. For them, by hook or by crook, come full-time, they needed it to be a zero. “It’s about the whole team is very disappointed and down”, Wenger said.

“The referee saw it the way he saw it, and we had to survive”.

“The football player’s fame counteracts the visual and phonetic similarities” with the name of a Spanish cycling gear manufacturer called Massi, which had challenged the trademark, the EU’s second-highest court said.

If Arsene Wenger, managing his final home European match for Arsenal, could have dreamed of a start, it would have looked something like this.

“To be honest it was 90 minutes in which my body was full of strong emotions, these players are basically heroes”.