Mikel Arteta admits what Arsenal did wrong in crunch Man City loss | Football

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta insists there was no difference between the teams as Manchester City beat his side 2-1 at the Etihad on Sunday, but does admit there was one thing his players could have done better.

It was a crunch clash in the Premier League title race as Manchester City cut the Gunners’ lead at the top of the table to just three points.

Pep Guardiola’s side go to Burnley on Wednesday night and a victory will see them usurp Arsenal as league leaders.

It was a tight game on Sunday afternoon, with Rayan Cherki giving the home side the lead on 16 minutes through a brilliant individual goal.

That lead did not last long as Kai Havertz charged down a Gianluigi Donnarumma clearance two minutes later, gleefully watching the ball spoon into the net.

The visitors had chances but it was Erling Haaland who scored the final goal of the game on 65 minutes, although Havertz had a golden chance to equalise again in stoppage time, heading over.

Arteta felt it was a level game, but it was their composure that let his players down, with chances created and spurned, while Manchester City took theirs.

‘When you don’t [take the chances] and they have the individual quality, that’s the risk. Because you lose the game,’ the Arsenal boss told Sky Sports.

‘I don’t think there was any difference between the two teams.

‘There is an element of luck, whether the ball goes in or not. The second goal, the ball gets deflected and it goes to Haaland. There is individual quality as well, to be cool, precise and ruthless. You have to be there.

‘We absolutely did that. You can see right to the end of the game the attitude of the team. We could have been more composed in certain moments, but we certainly took the game to areas where we wanted it.

‘We knew we had a big chance to win it. We were close, not close enough. But now we have to reset. We lost an opportunity today, a big one. But there is still another five to go. There are still a lot of positives today.’

Arteta was aggressive in his team selection, starting Martin Odegaard, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke behind Havertz.

Eze struck the post in the second half, while Gabriel also found the upright with a header late on and Arteta puts the loss down to these fine margins.

‘We generated situations we felt we could generate. There is one where Kai is onside on the halfway line totally free to go one versus one. We did that,’ said the Spaniard.

‘But we are in the level we are in because this team has taken us there. That’s the level you have to be to win it. There are certain big chances in front of goal, like the ones we had against them, where you need to put it away to come back from the Etihad with three points.

‘There was a battle, intensity, you expect that. Part of the game had a lot of similarities with the first 28 minutes of the cup final. We had two massive chances to go ahead. But we didn’t, that changes the course of the game.

‘We take it game by game. We had very good moments a few days ago in the Champions League against Sporting. We are playing so many games. We are the only team that’s playing, playing, playing and playing. But the positive thing is we have seen the level, we can cope with that, and not just that but do even better.

‘There are five games to go, but we’re going to give a real go for it.

‘We have full belief we can do it. Today we have shown the team that we are. It’s still in our hands, and it’s there for the taking.’

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