Arsenal dressing room speak out on Atleti Madrid controversy - 'It's the rules'

Arsenal were held by Atletico Madrid in the first-leg of their Champions League semi final on Wednesday evening and there appears to be a feeling of huge frustration within the Gunners' dressing room

Gabriel Jesus led Arsenal’s chorus of frustration - but insists they are firmly on course to reach the Champions League final.

The first semi-final against Atletico Madrid was dogged by controversy surrounding penalties with two given and perhaps the most obvious overturned in the Metropolitano.

Gunners striker Jesus, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli all came out fighting as they believe Arsenal will use the fuel to ensure they win the second leg next week.

Viktor Gyokeres converted Arsenal’s penalty after being pushed in the back. Julian Alvarez converted Atletico’s spot kick after a handball against Ben White.

Then Dutch referee Danny Makkelie overturned a penalty award for David Hancko’s challenge on Eberechi Eze after checking the VAR screen THIRTEEN times amid howls of protests from Atletico.

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On any other night, a draw would be seen as a good result. But Arsenal played well enough to win. Now they will have to win the second leg to reach their first Champions League final in 20 years.

Jesus said: “I hope we can play a great match at home, in front of our fans, and get to the final. We knew it, but obviously we came here to make a result.

“Unfortunately we conceded a penalty, that in my view was a penalty - it's the rules. And then after obviously I didn't watch it back, but I think it was a penalty on Ebs. But that's the game, that's Champions League.

“When I was at Manchester City we faced them in the quarter-final, if I'm not wrong, and it was a very tough game.

“So sometimes it's like this, and like I said, to come here, to play against them, the way we played was good. And now we have to play them at home, so it will be another good game, but we are playing at home.”

It was a world away from the nine-goal thriller in the other semi final between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain. But Jesus says theirs was just as tough in such a hot atmosphere.

Jesus said: “Obviously yesterday everyone could see a different game (between Bayern Munich and PSG ), in terms of football. It was a very open match, both teams attacking, very open, a lot of space.

“This was a more closed match, more positional, more tactical. It’s football, football is like that. So I believe that both, the other two semi-finalists, next week will be a more open match again. Our match will be a bit more closed. It’s part of it.”

Saka, who came on as a substitute but will be fit to start against Fulham on Saturday, said: “We have mixed feelings, we'd like maybe to have come away with a win, but we'll take the draw.

”It's half-time, and we're confident going back to Emirates Stadium. We're really excited and we're going into that one with full confidence.

"A draw isn't bad, but I would say we're never really satisfied if we don't win, with the talent in the group. We want to win and we'll try and do that next week.

"We're looking forward to Emirates Stadium next week - I'm sure it's going to be above and beyond what we saw tonight, and that will definitely give us the boost. We're going to see if we can continue our unbeaten run, of course - starting next week.”

Martinelli added: “We knew when Atletico went through, it was going to be a big battle and not was a really hard game, they’ve got a really good side and of course we wanted to come here and win the game.

“But we’ll take the draw, playing away from home, we have a big once next week in our place so we’ll be up for it. We play for Arsenal, we know how the big club is and we trust in ourselves.

“We’ll take the draw, of course we could have done things better but it’s the semi final of the Champions League so the opponent is going to be really good and we’ll take the draw, go to London and we want to win the game to go to the final.”