Mikel Arteta admits Arsenal missed Kieran Tierney’s attacking threat on the left flank as his side settled for a frustrating 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace on a night of few chances.
The Scot, who has been in fine form recently, sat out this evening’s clash at the Emirates with a calf problem and the boss confirmed the left-back will have an MRI scan tomorrow to assess the extent of the damage.
Here’s what Arteta had to say when he faced the Sky Sports cameras…
On what was missing this evening…
Some freshness and some quality in the final third. We generated a lot of entrances in the final third but without big, big chances. We developed a lot of situations where we lacked the last pass or the timing or the last shot. Probably we had to generate more to win that game.
On whether he expected more from his players…
I’d have liked to see a win today and to score a few goals but it didn’t happen. There were moments when fatigue played a big moment when we started to give very difficult balls away when we were completely free. We gave the ball away and allowed the transitions to Palace, which is probably what they do best. I cannot fault the spirit and the fight they put in, they tried until the last minute with that chance we had with the wide free-kick, but it wasn’t enough today.
On missing Kieran Tierney…
Yeah, he’s a real threat with the way we are playing and the way we attack on that left side. He’s a really important player. We didn’t have him, he’s injured and we have to find other solutions.
On whether he’ll be back for the next game…
I don’t know. It depends how he evolves. He’s going to have an MRI scan tomorrow and we’ll see how he is.
On expecting this type of performance from a Hodgson side…
Absolutely, he’s done it all through his career and very successfully. That’s why they’ve beaten big teams in recent years, the way they’ve done it [tonight]. We knew what we had to do, we knew the plan but the execution and the quality today was not there to win the game.
On whether he has a lack of depth in his squad…
No. A lot of Premier League teams are in the same position. I think we lost four players in the last week with injuries. These are going to happen. Some others that haven’t played much have to step in, it’s what it is. The schedule is crazy, it’s still going to be crazy, so we have to adapt.
Lol so Arsenal. As soon as a player becomes irreplaceable he gets injured.
That thing where we all went “Tierney shouldn’t be played 120mins in the FA Cup”. Yeah. That seems like a legit concern now.
I really think Arteta has been unlucky but he needs to learn quick about physical limits to our players. Partey comes back too soon. Luiz and Martinelli stay on the field after injuries. Tierney plays way too football in a week and a half.
It’s like Arteta can only think about the game in front of him. The season is a marathon not a sprint.
You can’t blame Mikel. But the director of high performance should be responsible
I agree, but I don’t think we would still be in the fa cup without tierney
We don’t know that and yes he was our best player on the day and no he shouldn’t have played.
I hear you, re: your last point and wish we rested more players for the FA Cup, at least he rested the young guns. But at the same time when Arteta doesn’t focus on just taking the games one at a time the fan base will crucify him for any loss.
Nonsense. Before the Chelsea game, Arteta had lost as much as any Arsenal manager, and there were still people supporting him. Now that he’s gotten a few wins, any criticism of him is met with dozens of dislikes. He’s still massively popular, despite the fact that he’s clearly a fairly average manager who can’t adapt the team’s play to game state. I’m not saying he’ll never be good, in fact I believe he will be, but he’s clearly not very good now. Given how hated Emery was even though the results never got as bad, Arteta can pretty much lose… Read more »
I think the psychoogical thing with Arteta is the same with big parts of our squad: It is not good at the moment, but it has potential to be better. But also I have to ask if he would be a top manager next month or in 10 years. And I think the later is a pretty long time to wait for. Because of stability reasons I keep him for the rest of the year. So we could get a orderly change IF there is no process whatsoever visible from December to 2020 to June 2021. I think the sacking… Read more »
“A marathon, not a sprint.”
Good old George Graham. 😉
I mean i expected Tierney to be replaced for the Palace game for recovery, so at first I was ok. But when I heard about a injury, I instantly got an Arsenal-attack. I’m just praying for a very short stint off.
Auba didn’t get injured.. but I get your point, our best players keep dropping off one way or the other..
Second choice left-back goes out on loan and first choice left-back gets injured one week later. Wonder what Flamini is doing these days.
Becoming one of the richest men in the world.
I saw him two years ago playing for Getafe. He was good.
I saw him four years ago playing for Arsenal. He wasn’t.
We just cannot have a good thing.
When it comes to injuries, if it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.
Born under a bad sign, I went down since I began to crawl.
We need to find a player who can have the type of impact Bruno Fernandes has had at United.
KSE need to put their hand in their pocket again, we need a game changer.
Try a €50mill offer for Odegaard who’s sat on the Madrid bench twiddling his thumbs.
If we could play our first choice eleven every game?
We could push for a Europa place.
But since that’s unlikely, the reality of our situation is, we’re a mid table/bottom half team.
Take a couple of player out, and what’s left is poor.
I like your point in principal.
but i dont think odegaard is the answer.
bringing in a 50m superstar might save the season but it wont fix us, we need 2-3 30m players first.
We desperately need an attacking midfielder who can consistently carve open quality chances, and can chip in with double figures in goals + assists. Clubs are happy for us to have the ball, and to try and hit us on the counter, we keep seeing the same script. The more we have the ball, the less dangerous we are, and the more dangerous the opposition become. In our recent games against Brighton, Newcastle + Palace, for all our possession, it wasn’t us who had the best chances. Rodgers showed the blueprint on how to beat us in the second half… Read more »
Giving the ball away wasn’t the biggest problem, considering they didn’t score. Doing something (anything?) when in possession was the main issue.
Giving the ball away cheaply instead of doing something/anything is part of that, no?
Love the attitude. Just gotta get on with it… it’s down to us
We certainly are on fine margins. which is why I felt we needed to see 4 PL matches before fully deciding if Arteta has been able to turn the corner. He was saved initially by Martinelli’s timely return which also allowed (forced) him to better consider Saka on right side. Both Saka and Martinelli then sparked Tierney and Bellerin. The Scot went into great form but today without him we were again a shade of the recent self. I don’t think I’d fault AMN bc he is what he is. As I mentioned in summer when many were all too… Read more »
With regard Luiz, I am astounded Arteta is still considering handing him a contract extension.
Insanity.
Would think he needs to settle on his preferred back line now.
Holding and Mari or Gabriel rotating between these 3 and creating some smeblance of intuition is critical instead of fluffing about with Luiz.
There’s also Omar Rekik developing, Saliba and Mavro to consider in summer, so I cannot see for the life of me why we should even be in a position to consider extending on Sideshowbob.
Crazy.
I hope he is just entertaining the idea publicly because it would be crazy to say to a player in january that we have decided to call quits on his Arsenal career. We might need him before the end of the season
Yeah, but they seriously tried to extent Mustafi, so you never know. But signing a player for experience alone and not his playing is …… Arsenal. As with the youngsters, I really hope he gives players with future time.
MRI Scan – knowing Arsenal that means he’s out for a month.
Not necessarily. *Fingers crossed*
About the fight of the players – although it was a mediocre performance, I was somewhat pleased to see the players frustrated as soon as the ref finished the game. I really felt they were tired, but trying their hardest to make something happen. The spirit is there, at least. Let’s hope this desire/frustration does not spiral down into shit form again, but into the type of drive that’s going to be needed throughout the rest of the season.
So glad we played him all 120 minutes in the FA Cup game….
This is totally on Arteta. Why on earth did he play Tierney for the whole 120minutes when he knew he was irreplaceable. Even to a novices like me it was obvious he was in the red zone.
Arsenal need a decent back up to Tierney, but someone who is happy to sit on the bench most of the season. Charlie Daniels, formerly of Bournemouth is available and fit again, and is playing well at Shrewsbury. He could certainly do a job, has Premier League experience and is a natural left back.
No mention of why Mari was not playing last night. Is he injured?
we are definitely lacking depth, on a day where a spark is needed and you have have players like Pepe, Nketiah coming off the bench to do what exactly?
We were always an injury away from disaster. No back up LB, no back up striker, no back up #10 assuming we are settling for ESR, no back up goalie. it’s going to be a longer season that we thought.
Desperately sorry for Tierney. He has been out best player recently and our game suffered on his absence.
Our U23 left back, Tolaji Bola, is back from loan to Rochdale. Hopefully he can deputise on the meantime.