After Arsenal’s dismal defeat to Crystal Palace last week, which could be partially forgiven as Patrick Vieira’s side are playing brilliant football and were on their home turf, Mikel Arteta was expecting his side to bounce back at home against a Brighton team that had only gained one point in their last 7 games.
Until yesterday, Arsenal had only lost at the Emirates to the top three teams in the country, i.e. Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool, so it can only be considered a shock to lose to the Seagulls in such a crucial game, and Arteta could not hide his anger after the game.
The Boss told Arsenal.com: “The first half was really poor again. The reaction that we wanted to show and everything that we talked about, we didn’t make it happen on the pitch. We were sloppy with the ball, we were second best again in a lot of situations, we didn’t show any purpose or build any momentum in the game, play with the right speed and transform the game that Brighton proposed today and with the first chance that they had, the only chance I think they had, they scored a goal and, again, we created a cold atmosphere, an atmosphere we weren’t comfortable with and when we tried to change it, it was too late. It was great not to give up, but it was too late.”
Arteta didn’t think the players had a bad attitude, but he was extremely unimpressed with the way their game plan never even got going until the end. “It’s not a problem of attitude,” he continued. “for me it was a problem of the approach and the courage that we showed to play and we didn’t have that purpose. I know we didn’t have that intention to attack and step in and provoke the situation that we want to provoke and we’re looking at each other too many times instead of taking ownership and doing what we have to do and you cannot play like that, you have to make yourself count, step in, and today we didn’t do it.”
It is certainly baffling as to how everything has suddenly fallen apart, and losing a game that should have been our easiest one in our run-in, and it will be interesting to see if Arteta can get the boys back on track for Southampton next week. If he doesn’t, I think we can kiss European football goodbye for yet another season…