Mikel Arteta spoke to Sky Sports after the 2-2 draw with Liverpool at the Emirates this afternoon.
Here’s what he had to say.
How he’s feeling …
I’m very proud of the team for different reasons. The first one because the courage, the quality, the domination, the absolute game that we wanted to play, especially in the first half and the score should have been even bigger in my opinion, some big chances. Then it’s true that we had to make changes. They came out a little bit, we didn’t have enough courage to play in the first phase more than we should have done. And there are certain very particular moments as well that I think dictated the result.
Are you more proud because of the injuries?
They deserved to win the game. I think we were the better team. And we didn’t, so obviously there are learnings to take from that. Especially when we conceded both goals. The second one is the transition moment. We have to end up in the final third with a chance to take, and ten seconds later, we are 2 v 1 inside our own box at this level against this team. Obviously, you cannot give that away.
What was key to first half control?
Well, because we were very clear what we have to do with the execution, the quality that we showed, the determination, the aggression as well without the ball to go and attack them and regain the ball straight up. So it was really good but probably we just lacked a few moments where we should have put the ball in the net.
Do you agree with Saka’s assertion Arsenal didn’t play for 90 minutes?
Yes, especially in that first phase as I said that we needed more courage to play like we had done in certain moments and that’s where we created big opportunities.
Did losing Gabriel make the team more determined to hold what you’ve got?
I don’t know, and we won’t know but that’s the reality that we have at the moment and we have to face it, that’s it.
On Timber …
Well, I don’t know exactly what happened, but he said he cannot carry on and Big Gabi as well. So I don’t know.
Martin Odegaard?
As well, I think he’s still a bit far.
Are Arsenal staying in the fight for the tile?
Well we’re going to try our best and again, I think the context in which we have played those nine games probably nobody could ever imagine that it was going to be the case. But I think the character, the personality, the way we played today against the top team at the moment in the Premier League, it was unbelievable, understanding where we are at the moment.
Learning one – bring off players who are struggling before the 80th minute.
what about buying proper backups for players who have been struggling for months
Morrissey is spelt Morrissey!
Also Morrissey is a wanker these days, so perhaps a little differential isn’t bad 😉
If we come out of this period even in touching distance to City, we’ll win the league. City are picking up points, but only just. They don’t look the same. Liverpool will fall away. They’ve still barely played anyone, and they couldn’t beat us with half our team missing. If we don’t win the league this year, it will be because of the referees. We are so clearly the best team. Liverpool and City both needed huge advantages from either the referee or the injury gods to scrape draws with us.
Would love these 3 moments explained by the refs:
1 VVD kicking out at Havertz
2 Konate on Martinelli (no pen)
3 3rd goal disallowed
These games are often decided by tiny margins but these are 3 HUGE moments and neither went in our favour.
The letter of the law never seems to apply when it’s an opposing player.
4th Diaz kicking the ball away without a card
The thing that pissed me off the most about the match was the absolute lack of interest or fuss about Van Dijk blatantly kicking out TWICE at Havertz. Certain red card and Var didn’t even look and the commentary said nothing about it. If it was the other way around and Havertz kicked Van Dijk, Neville would pass out from asphyxiation from the length of his “oooohhhhh”.
Yep. The punditry is part of the problem. And they get in the meekest of Arsenal pundits in Theo who doesn’t stand up to Keane and Carragher.
Micah is the only fair and truthful pundit out of the lot.
We drew vs. Liverpool, and could easily have won, with a back four made of a DM at RB, a RB at RCB, our 7th best defender at LCB, and a RB at LB. Not too bad to be fair. If it wasn’t for the fact that we seem to keep losing one or two players to injury every game I’d say these are the kinds of performances that make you believe you can win the title.
People will look at the league table and see we are 3rd but in reality if we look at the context of the games we’ve played, Arsenal are in a good position to go and take the league by storm once we get our players back firing, eventually even var + refs have to give us some calls right ? … right?
I’ve just watched that incident at the end of the game again. F**king outrageous refereeing.
No foul by an Arsenal player but the ref decided to blow for one. He had the choice of letting things go and letting VAR get involved if we scored but instead decided to stop the game. We were denied what would have been a winning goal.
These refs are all a complete joke.