Sunday’s FA Cup third-round clash at the Emirates Stadium against Manchester United provided plenty of dramatic moments and talking points for Arsenal fans to dissect.
After the match, Mikel Arteta addressed the media, discussing Arsenal’s performance, injury concerns, the psychological impact of the result, and potential transfer activity.
Arteta says defeat to Manchester United hard to swallow
“Incredible how we didn’t win the game, that’s basically to sum up, the dominance, the superiority in relation to the opposition and everything we did to try to win the game and that’s it, we didn’t get what we deserve clearly, but there is an element about putting the ball in the back of the net, we did it once, with the amount of situations, chances, penalties that we had, we didn’t. We go home extremely sad but I cannot be prouder of my players, the team, individually, collectively what they have produced, on Wednesday night against Newcastle, against two top teams, it’s incredible. We haven’t got rewarded and that’s the downside to it”.
On lifting players like Havertz after the defeat…
“To him and to all of them, that I love them, that we all love them individually and as a team they are a joy. What this team produces every three days is incredible regardless of what happens. And I’m not going to lose sight of that because of our results or for two because we didn’t deserve those results. What can we do better. Let’s try to do it. It’s very difficult to achieve. It’s an emotional part. It’s something related to confidence as well. But it’s very difficult to ask something else from our players”.
On preventing this from becoming a psychological issue…
“ But that’s the outcome. Obviously relying on not performing like this and waiting for one shot to go on target and score a goal. I don’t want to bet on that. I bet on that team to try. Are we going to win big trophies? I don’t know. But playing like this there are very few teams in the world that can play at that level”.
On whether there is added pressure to win the North London Derby…
“Regardless of if we would’ve won the last two games, it’s exciting and looking forward to play the biggest game of the season for our supporters and what it means to us”.
