Mikel Arteta said Arsenal were “nowhere near” the required level as they were downed 2-0 by PSV Eindhoven in Holland.
The Gunners endured an off night from start to finish at the Phillips Stadium and were fortunate not to be two goals behind by the break after Cody Gakpo and Xavi Simon had strikes ruled out for offside.
There were to be no lucky breaks in the second half. Joey Veerman’s decisive finish broke the deadlock on 56 minutes and substitute Luke de Jong doubled the lead with his head after Aaron Ramsdale flapped at a corner.
Arteta tried to inject a sense of urgency into the performance with a series of substitutions and a change of shape but the men in black just couldn’t find any flow. It was, by a long way, Arsenal’s worst performance of the season and adds to concerns that the squad are running out of steam at the end of a busy October.
“I’m very disappointed,” the manager told Arsenal.com. “It’s the end of a long run, where we won a lot of games and today is our first defeat [since the start of September] and we have to reset. Congratulations to PSV – they were the better team today. We were nowhere near our level and we know that in Europe, it’s very difficult to win [then].
“We didn’t get any control. We didn’t get the ball in the areas we wanted. We gave so many balls away, which allowed so many transitions, which was what they were looking for whenever they got in the right structure. They were on top of a lot of things that last week was different.”
Tomorrow, Arteta and his players will analyse this evening’s showing before turning their attention to the visit of Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
Last time out the newly-promoted side beat Liverpool, so there’s no room for resting on our laurels. Arteta was also quick to point out that it’s not all doom and gloom.
“We are in a really good position,” he said. “We’re disappointed tonight but there’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to react. On Sunday, we have a really important game, and then we’ll look at Zurich.
“We have to be much better than we were today. We knew what they were trying to do and the way we executed certain actions, the way we competed, it wasn’t good enough.”
We have to RESeT
Couldn’t be better said! COYG!!
I sincerely hope Mik have realised that some players cannot get him the required results.I wasn’t so dissapointed cos we still got a chance at home but I’ll be mad if we don’t win three points on sunday.We need to keep on soldiering until January. Reinforcements is an absolute necessity.
The mentality seems to have gone, the players were indecisive and timid. Martinelli had a stinker, so did Saka when he came on, pretty much everyone had a stinker. The performance was insipid and I really hope we are not reverting to type. Reset please.
I do hope Mikel isn’t starting to believe his own bullshit. Richie Dunne on Virgin 2 in Dublin said that there was a tactical switch with Odegaard and Xhaka………xhaka going back into a deeper role. Martin was terrible and xhaka got out of his happy zone, ending up booked. I hope Mikel Resets Himself, and gets back to the basics that have worked well. Tomi is another example of tactical bullshit……left full? It worked v Mo Salah, and then he drops KT against lesser opposition, and we looked very poor v Leeds and Southampton in both second half’s. Stop unnecessary… Read more »
What,are you saying about Tomi? That he should have persisted with him @LB after it worked vs Sala?
KT started the game. Get your head out of your arse.
Mikel finds a formula, Mikel sticks with it. Mikel being abit overly optimistic says
‘ OK guys it’s over to you for 70 games’
Players are like.
‘fuck man that’s alot of work for a miserly 70’000 a week’ what about this other lot warming seats and doing fuckall? ‘
Mikel
‘ OK I’ll try em’
The end . 0-2 (should be 0-5)
what was wrong with my comment? it went missing
As one commentator pointed out during the game, regarding rebounding from a defeat: the only other time Arsenal lost a match this season, we won the next six in all competitions. Including Spurs and Liverpool.