Here is every word Mikel Arteta said after his Arsenal side were beaten by Bournemouth in the Premier League
Mikel Arteta faced the media following his Arsenal side’s horrendous defeat to Bournemouth at home in the Premier League. It leaves the title race wide open and has given Manchester City all the belief they need.
Naturally, there were big questions for the Arsenal manager to answer in the post-match press conference. Many asked how his team would respond, knowing their next league test means going to the Etihad Stadium, which could be the game where everything swings fully away from the Gunners.
It was up to Arteta to re-energise not just his players, but a fan base who are left wondering what happens next. He wouldn’t be drawn on specifics and errors but apologised to the supporters.
Here is every word the manager said:
Tough one to take.
Well, extremely disappointing. It’s a big punch on the face. That’s what I said to the boys. And now it’s about how we react to that. Because game on, you’re going to require now a big speed, a lot of fight and very clear. How are we going to approach that?
There’s no grey areas. We are in, we are out. And we need to be very, very, very strong and determined to approach it in a different way than we’ve done today, especially when the game wasn’t going our way.
Are you worried about how the team will respond to this? They seem very tense.
No, because I’ve seen them before in many scenarios and I’ve seen them for nine months. But today there were some very basic things that we did extremely bad against their team.
When you do that, they’re going to capitalise, stretch the pitch. Again, it becomes very chaotic and very difficult to control. So, yeah, it’s a lot of good things that they’ve done, obviously, credit to them. But I think there’s a lot, a lot, a lot in our plate to look at ourselves.
Yesterday, obviously, you asked the fans to bring a lot. With the performance that we saw, what would you have to say to encourage them that you’re going to see a response?
Apologise, take it on the chin, and that’s it. What I’m trying to do is give our best to the club, give the responsibility to our players. And I know if the atmosphere, the fans, the support, the energy in the stadium is the best in the world. We have a much better chance. I don’t think that there’s any other possibility to perform better than when you have that kind of support. But then we have to respond. And we had moments in the first half where we did it and there were other moments that we were on our level. So, yeah, we have to apologise to them and improve.
After the high of the win in Lisbon, were you surprised how poor the players were today?
We were very far from the level that I was shown. That’s for certain, especially in certain areas that are critical. And when you play against a team like Bournemouth, they were very clear. But, again, I don’t want to criticise any player, especially here probably.
Momentum is obviously a big thing in sport. I guess the narrative now is going to be that the momentum is shifting away from Arsenal and into City because that’s three consecutive defeats, domestically at least. So what would you say to that?
We can’t control that. I think what we can control is our performances that we’ve done over the last nine months. And that’s the only thing. So anything that is said when you have a defeat at home, you have to accept it. That’s it.
There are no excuses. There is no this or that or the things that are here. It’s about how we’re going to stand up, first of all, individually. And then as a team to change that immediately on Wednesday.
You said about your team doing simple things rather than making simple mistakes. Do you mean about when Bournemouth were pressing you, playing at the back, there were quite a lot of errors today in the second half?
There were a lot of situations. I don’t want to go into that detail. They were quite obvious. And we need to do that much better in order to have certain control and dominance in the game. Otherwise, it’s difficult.
Can I just ask, there was no Richy today and no Martin. Can you give us an update on them?
Sorry?
Could we have an update on them and their availability going forward?
No. And on Martin as well? No. And Bukayo Saka either. We don’t have an update yet.
You said that they were making mistakes and you weren’t happy.Is part of that down to tiredness, not only in terms of them playing a lot of games, but the mental fatigue of them trying to find the goal in this line?
I don’t want to put those excuses because we’ve been playing so many games every three days. We’re going to have to continue to do that. So that’s the context. That’s the scenario. We have to embrace it and especially enjoy the opportunity. That’s one of the things that I haven’t seen the team today. That level of enjoyment in certain moments. That’s a fight that we have to have to really change the course of the game when it goes difficult. We’re going to have different contexts from here to June. And we need to be able to adapt and resolve all of them. If we want to achieve what we want to achieve.
We’ve spoken a few times this season about the nervousness and how much they want to win in the crowd. It felt today like there were moments when there was a bit of a disconnect between you saying calm down and keep the ball and the fans saying go, go, go, attack. How did you manage that?
That’s clear. That’s emotion. It comes from the right place. It’s not a day for sure to demand anything like what the fans have done today.
Just given what’s happened in this game in the last couple of weeks, do you think it’s one of your biggest challenges you’ve faced to turn things around now from the mentality-wise?
Yeah, we know what is at stake. And the fact that as a club we haven’t done it for so long is a reason for that. We talked about the difficulty. But I just want to focus on the things that we can control, dominate. And we have done it. It’s not that we have to do a lot of new things that we haven’t done. No, no, let’s keep doing it. Almost all the things that we’ve done for nine months, because that’s what has taken us all the way there. And on Wednesday I saw a lot of them. And today, yeah, we’ve gone back. So we need to learn. We need to be very critical to ourselves and then pick ourselves up. Because on Wednesday, we have a big one coming up.
How much of the drop in the level do you think is down to nerves and the tension of the title race? And however much it is, as a manager, how do you fix that?
We need everything. We need, first of all, we need everybody fit and available. So the ones that are not involved, the ones that are not with us, that are really big, important players, we need them immediately with us because then we’re going to be much stronger. And then the other ones, they need to stand up. Me, the first one, and embrace this challenge and go for it. So today we have to suffer. It’s painful. It’s a terrible feeling. Tomorrow is a different day. And if somebody would have said to me in August, we are in this position right now in April, I’m sure we would all take it.
