Mikel Arteta saw his Arsenal side’s unbeaten start to the season come to an end as they were comprehensively beaten 3-1 at Manchester United on Sunday.
A debut goal from Antony and Marcus Rashford’s brace set the Red Devils on their way, with the Gunners’ only response coming through Bukayo Saka despite enjoying moments of domination.
The defeat brought Arsenal’s winning streak come to an end, though they still lead the Premier League table by a point.
Here’s how the Arsenal boss reflected on a game packed with goals, VAR incidents and drama.
“Very disappointed that we haven’t won the game because the game was there for the taking. We haven’t won it because we lacked discipline in certain moments to defend certain actions, and we weren’t ruthless enough in their box.
“We lacked discipline. We concede the first goal where after the action in the contact with Bruno we’re still three-vs-three but we don’t follow our principles and we concede the goal when it’s two against one. After that it was all us, chance after chance, imposing ourselves in the way we wanted. I said at half time to the boys ‘the game is there for the taking, if we play with more courage we’re going to win the game.’
“After the 1-1 it should be two or three and then in our best moment we gave the ball away in a dangerous area and on top of that we stepped in when we can never do that in a dangerous area against that team and we suffered the goal. It’s a big lesson. If you want to win here you have to do everything so right and especially if you don’t do it there in the opponent’s goal with the number of chances we created.”
“To be consistent with the top teams and challenging at the top of this league, you have to come here and play the way you want to play but win, and then it’s a very different story. To play the way we played here today, I want to see how many teams do that this season.”
“It won’t happen. That won’t happen because the performance is there and we know what we lacked today – the details to lose the game.
“You are here and you have a very different performance with the same result and then it’s a hard one to take because you are questioning your level. I don’t think there’s any question about the level there.”
“I’m not here to talk about United. What I saw is a very different Arsenal team that came here and played the way we wanted to play against these world-class players and unfortunately we couldn’t get the result we deserved.”
“I haven’t seen the action but what they said is that it was a soft foul so it’s just consistency. The soft foul on Bukayo Saka with Mings is not a penalty last week, the soft foul against Aaron Ramsdale when we concede a goal against Villa, it’s a goal. So just consistency. There’s nothing we can do now, it’s too late, but it’s just consistency.”
“You haven’t heard me [talk] about that and I don’t want any excuses because these are the players we have. For me, they are the best players. We give them confidence and belief and with those players, we play here the way we played. That’s it. That’s not going to change.”
Credit: 90min.com
