Arsenal News: Gunners Need to Change Attitude to do Well in Champions League, Says Mertesacker

Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker feels that his side need to change their attitude if they want to make progress in the Champions League. The Gunners failed to progress beyond the round of sixteen of the Champions League for a fifth straight season after losing to AS Monaco on away goals.

Despite managing to beat the Ligue 1 side 2-0 in the second leg, the North London club were knocked out of the European competition due to them suffering a 1-3 home defeat in the first leg.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger rued his side's performances in the first leg as they conceded a stoppage time goal that eventually resulted in them getting knockout out of Europe.

And Mertesacker also feels that his side cannot afford to make mistakes and concede such goals if they want to do well in the Champions League in the future.

"In the first game, we didn't have that mental level you need to compete at the highest level. That was missing but you could see on Tuesday night in Monaco how good we are as a team and how well organised we can be," said the German defender, according to ESPN.

"We need to consider that every day in training and in games, that is why we are so far away from winning the Champions League."

"It is the last 16 and Monaco were underestimated by a lot of people, but they deserved it by playing well in the first leg," he added. We had one bad game and that is enough to get knocked out."

Meanwhile, Aaron Ramsey feels that they can take a lot of positives from their win at Monaco and apply it to their forthcoming fixtures in the Premier League and the FA Cup.

"We could take some positives from the Monaco performance and hopefully we can get back on track against Newcastle this weekend and we can keep that running run we are on," said the Wales midfielder, according to ESPN.

"Many things can happen in the Premier League still, with many twists and turns.

"We will be looking to concentrate on ourselves and take full advantage of the games we have left."

"We are also in a good position in the FA Cup. We have Reading [in the semifinals], which we will feel confident of going through."