Mikel Arteta claims Turf Moor pitch made life difficult for Arsenal
Mikel Arteta claims that the poor pitch at Burnley contributed to his team’s play as they came away with a goalless draw against the Clarets.
Arsenal started as the better side but ended the game fortunate to have gotten a point.
The draw ended a run of successive wins for the Gunners against Sean Dyche’s men and Arteta believes that his players could have done better if the pitch had been standard.
In preparation for the game, Arsenal played on an unwatered pitch as Arteta had anticipated that would be the case at Burnley, yet it didn’t help the Gunners as they struggled to control the game for most of the match.
Defensively, they, however, stood up to the hosts and refused to be bullied, Arteta still thinks his players would probably have won the game if the pitch conditions were better.
He said per Arsenal.com: “The conditions were difficult – the grass was this long and they didn’t put any water on it, and that’s not a very helpful thing to play football.
“I didn’t water the pitch yesterday at the training ground because I expected it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to play.
“They (Burnley) do what they do really well, and you are allowed to do it so we have to react to that.
“In some moments it wasn’t the grass – it was their quality and what they do really well, and we could not do it in the right way.”
The pitch looked fine to me, what did not look fine was the state of Arsenal’s play. Now is not the time for excuses but a reflection on what went wrong with the team itself.