Mikel Arteta has claimed that having watched the game you would have seen that ‘Arsenal won the game’ despite the resulting proving to be different.
The Gunners had the chance to draw level with Tottenham after they folded against Brighton earlier on today, but we couldn’t take it.
We looked the better team, and while we had a number of clear-cut chances to break the deadlock in the opening 45 minutes, Fraser Forster was equal to our efforts, and we ended up going into the break behind.
We still tried to push on in search of the equaliser after the break, but Southampton were forcing us to to keep our distance from goal, packing out their back line in order to limit us to try something special, and we just couldn’t find it.
While the manager admits that it was a ‘huge’ opportunity which was missed this afternoon, he feels even worse given that he believes his side should have won the game.
“Huge,” he told Arsenal Media after the full-time whistle. “Because for somebody that doesn’t know the result and is watching the game, you know what they will tell you, that Arsenal won the game, and we didn’t.
“It’s very disappointing, and difficult to explain with words. But this is sport, it’s what makes it different to any other – because again in basketball you have 25 shots and the winner has one and you win 10 out of 10 times.”
I think Arteta is clutching at straws a little here blaming the nature of football as a sport for his side’s loss, but I personally am not happy with the side’s performance, as well as the result. Yes, Forster was in top form to deny us the win, but if Saka had have put his shot anywhere but headed into the centre of the goal we would have been 1-0 up in the opening 45 minutes. Our finishing let us down and the lack of experience and composure was what cost us in the end.
Less of this ‘if it was Basketball’ nonsense. We have limited experienced players on the pitch and it was costly. Whether the likes of Elneny or Nicolas Pepe would have improved us from kick-off is another story, but the fact of the matter is that playing such inexperienced players today was our downfall.
Patrick