Mikel Arteta has challenged Arsenal players to keep fighting for the rest of the season after their painful exit from the Europa League competition.

Arsenal were dumped at the Emirates by Olympiacos after a late extra time winner by El-Arabi.

The Greek side were leading by a lone goal in full time as the game travelled to extra time due to the Gunners 1-0 victory in the first leg. Aubameyang levelled the scores in the 113-minute before Olympiacos El-Arabi scored the late winner.

Arsenals’ dream of qualifying for next season’s Champions League hangs in the balance as they are ninth on the league table, seven points below Chelsea, the occupant of the forth spot with 37 points.

Asked about the difficulty of finishing in the top four, Arteta replied: “(It is) very hard because looking at the table we’re still far from the objectives that we all have, but we’ve been far all season from it and we have to keep fighting.

“The most important thing now is that the dressing room has to be strong and we have to keep going and react.

“First of all, I have to convince them about what happened in the game and why they are not through in the tie.

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“If they continue to do that, there will be rewards like we have done in the last 10 games that we played.”

Arsenal have impressed since Arteta was appointed as Unai Emery’s replacement in December, but not on Thursday night, with their performance way below the standards the Spaniard expects.

“It hurts, big time,” added Arteta.

“We had a lot of hope in this competition. It was a great way for us to be able to go to Europe and it is a very beautiful competition to try to win.”

Olympiakos boss Pedro Martins, meanwhile, believed his side got everything they deserved.

“I think against Arsenal we had two very difficult games against a bigger opponent,” he said.

“But from the start of our European journey in the Champions League up until now we deserved to go through – perhaps we deserved more from our game against Spurs (in the Champions League group stage) and maybe we got what we deserved today.”