Following Arsenal’s loss at the Emirates against Manchester City, manager Mikel Arteta was livid as he blamed the individual errors of his players for the loss. Arteta’s men lost 3-1 at home losing the top spot of the Premier League for the first time since August. They are also winless in their last four games.
The Gunners did have a good game but some individual errors by Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel Magalhaes led to Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish scoring. Tomiyasu had a terrible back pass out of nowhere which was intercepted by De Bruyne who opened the scoring for the game. Bukayo Saka then equalized with a penalty just before half time. Jack Grealish then restored the lead after Gabriel lost possession with a missed pass. Erling Braut Haaland then scored the third goal to seal the game 3-1.
Arteta was critical of the mistakes his players made when he spoke in the post game press conference, “It’s exceptionally difficult to play at the level they require you to play to have a chance to win. I thought in many moments we did and we had them, but if you give three goals the way we did and don’t put away the big chances we had, then the margin for error is almost zero. It’s a shame because we really had them.”
Arteta on the errors: "It’s very difficult to play at the level to have a chance to win. I thought we did it but if you give three goals the way we did and don’t put away the big chances that we had the margin for error is almost zero. It’s a shame because we had them." pic.twitter.com/8w0lbvQSWd
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“I don’t know if it’s experience or bad luck. I’ve never seen Tomiyasu make that pass back in seven years and he did it today. It’s part of it and they have the quality to punish you.”
When pressed about how he will rally his players to regain their form, “We have to pick [up] the points, because the performances are there for sure. Games are decided in the boxes and we have given too much away today and weren’t ruthless enough to convert our chances. That’s what we have to improve.
“Psychologically there is a marathon still out there. I said it three months ago and I said it today, it’s about tomorrow. The most important thing is how we are tomorrow and focus on that because the rest, we don’t know what is going to happen.”
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is now back on top with 51 points. Though Arsenal has a game in hand with equal points as City. They will be looking to not lose that advantage.
Arteta will now hope his team gets back to winning performances for Saturday’s away game against Aston Villa.
