Diego Costa sent Atletico Madrid into the final of the Europa League by scoring the only goal of the game as the Spanish side beat Arsenal in the semi-final second leg at the Wanda Metropolitano on Thursday, writes DEAN WORKMAN.

Diego Simeone’s team came into the tie with a slight advantage after grabbing a 1-1 draw in the first leg at the Emirates. Atletico’s away goal meant that the Gunners knew they had to score at a stadium where their opponents had not conceded in 11 matches.

The game got off to a slow start which was not helped by the injury of Laurent Koscielny. The Frenchmen went down and had to be stretchered off with what looked like a bad injury.

Once the game got restarted Arsenal got on the ball with Atletico happy to sit back and defend deep. Arsene Wenger’s team were, however, struggling to break down the resolute defence of the home side, while the Spanish team always looked a threat on the counter-attack.

Just as it looked like the game would be goalless at the break a familiar foe in Costa opened the scoring. The Arsenal defence failed to deal with a long ball from Jan Oblak, Antoine Griezmann picked up the second ball and slipped it through to Costa. The former Chelsea man shrugged off Hector Bellerin before rifling his shot past David Ospina in the Arsenal goal. 1-0 to Atletico in first half stoppage time.

The game opened up in the second half as both teams traded chances.

Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck both could not take advantage of their openings in front of goal for Arsenal. While Costa and Griezmann were denied by some desperate Arsenal defending.

As the clock began to run down, Simeone’s men were happy to sit back and defend their lead. Try as they might, Arsenal could not break down the stubborn Atletico defence.

1-0 the final score as Atletico Madrid progress to the Europa League final with a 2-1 aggregate victory over Arsenal.

Photo: Juanjo Martic/Backpagepix