Absolutely no one who belongs to Arsenal Football Club, one way or the another, would be proud of the performance against Newcastle.
Especially when there was so much on the line. A two-nil defeat at the hands of the Magpies makes Arsenal’s passage to the Champions League extremely thin.
After Granit Xhaka gave a critical assessment of the team post game, even manager Mikel Arteta did not hold back in front of the media.
When asked about the embarrassing defeat, the Spaniard said on SkySports, “It’s a really tough night. Normally, I can sit here, and I can defend, but what we’ve done today, it’s not easy.”
“Newcastle were one hundred times better than us in every department from the beginning to the end and it’s hard to accept, but you have to accept it and that’s the reality of what happened today on that pitch.”
Mikel Arteta on if Arsenal need a ‘miracle’ to reach #UCL now: “We need to win & we need a defeat for them [Tottenham]. We know that in football anything is possible. You have to be there. Today we have to swallow all the poison that we can & tomorrow start again.” #afc
— afcstuff (@afcstuff) May 16, 2022
For most of the match it looked like it was Eddie Howe’s men who were chasing a finish in the top four and not the team from London. It looked like it was men against boys.
Arteta agrees that his team were second best in every department on Monday night. “We didn’t compete, we never got into the game, we put ourselves in trouble time after time, we lost every duel.”
He continued, “Every aspect of the game we were second best and Newcastle totally deserved to win the match, probably by a bigger margin as well.”
Mikel Arteta actually pushed this young players to their "elastic limit". They have obviously given everything and am proud of them. We go again next season, it's really a good fight and i enjoyed it.
— Sugamite™ (@Sugamite2) May 16, 2022
Many Arsenal fans have already started doubting whether the former assistant coach of Man City should have been handed a contract extension last week.
However, that’s not the discussion we should be having at current point of time. If there’s even one percent chance of finishing in the top four, we should put all our focus into it.
Also, don’t forget this is the youngest team in the Premier League and the fourth youngest in Europe.
Maybe we all have to be patient to see the true colors of this team.
Yash Bisht
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Another Arteta apologist giving excuse of having the youngest team in the division, as though it’s an achievement
Agree, sorry but that B.S. simply doesn’t wash anymore. Odegaard is captain of his national team, Saka is also on England’s team, so is Tierney for Scotland, Gabriel and Martinelli good enough to get called up to the Brazilian team, Lokonga has appeared on the Belgian squad.
Youth didn’t hold them back from reaching 4th place until they capitulated, sorry but these aren’t 18 year old kids and first year in the first team.
When MA got his new contract it proved that the club are not interested in rewarding for achieving. Instead, they gave a new contract to a manager who had not delivered much more than last year. About five additional points compared to last year at this moment in time. This kind of practice breeds mediocrity. If this is how the club go about business, it’s no wonder the squad are approaching each game in the same fusion. Why give more when the club have low boundaries or standards? It’s about time the owners developed this club with the intent to be the best (again). Not a club just to make up the numbers..
First lets say we do have our highest points under Arteta and our highest finish but and this is with one game to go. We have Scored 1 more goal than last season, let in 9 more than last season, lost 13 same as last season, have a 7 goal worse Goal difference than last season, spent 160 mil since last season. We have this season gone a goal down in 7 games and in all 7 games we have concedes first we have lost, so we haven’t managed to turn around any games at all and even force a draw. We have had no European competition to further put pressure on us and have concentrated solely on the league this last calender year. We have definitely not got out of this team, what has been put in and have grossly underachieved. Arteta has built his team and it is the most uninspiring team we have had for years and on top of that, he has been rewarded with a nice shiny brand new 3 year contract. Well that is the recipe for mediocrity.
Too true
Throwing your team under the bus, not an acceptable managerial mode of behavior in my book.
I would prefer he just said he was beaten by a better coach!
We played quite well early on, but sadly, once Newcastle scored, I think we looked a tired beaten team. Other than Nellie, there was no knight in shining armor on the bench to come to our rescue either.
I think Arteta really showed his managerial naivety against Spurs.
We only needed a draw from that game, against a team who are at their best on the break.
But we continued with are attacking style and got taken to the cleaners.
The loss to Spurs seemed to dump us into the “Pit of Despair” and we couldn’t climb out of it before the Newcastle game.
If I were the Arsenal Board I would take a long hard look at Graham Potter in the summer. His team beat both us and Spurs, away from home, in recent weeks.
Potter seems a much more pragmatic manager!!!
Arteta showed his naivety against Emery, Vierra and Howe just for starters.
In an article which I am composing in my head presently, I will shortly tackle the ills in our team and our psyche in great depth.
But for now, I am pleased and relieved that MA has not hidden behind which sadly he DID DO at the Spuds game lastweek, when he blamed the ref.
I truly believe he reflected on his mistake overnight, in how he spoke after the Spurs match and sensible decided against repeating THAT mistake, after the Newcastle debacle.
“hidden behind excuses….”
Arteta trying to win wenger trophy in wenger way?? i mean should have just parked the bus and went for a draw at spurs. Why try to win pretty?? Now even wenger trophy’s gone….
If he had parked the bus some fans would still have complained cos i remembered reading some comments saying he shouldn’t park the bus
How you win doesn’t matter, winning does. ‘Teta made the Rogers mistake from 2014 when Liverpool bottled the PL. Rogers went for a win against Chelsea when they needed a draw. Tired of this inexperience, we don’t need it.