Arteta: "We did a lot of strange things today"

Mikel Arteta spoke out after his Arsenal side suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Bournemouth in their Premier League Matchday 32 fixture. The loss has ratcheted up the pressure on the Gunners, whose lead over Manchester City could shrink to six points if the Citizens defeat Chelsea later today. Furthermore, the Sky Blues have a game in hand on the Londoners, and a direct clash between the two title contenders is set for next week, on Sunday, April 19th.

“It’s disappointing. This is a big blow, and now it’s all about our reaction. We weren’t very effective. Their first chance in our box – a deflection, poor defensive play, and that’s the goal. We need to recover from this. In the second half, you expect a different game. Today, we did a lot of strange things, even though we are usually very consistent. These things can happen; that’s football. The players are in a lot of pain, and they should be. They need to accept it, stand up, and fight again, otherwise, they’ll fall behind. We have a big week ahead, with a lot at stake. We are still in a good position.

We know what’s at stake. Our club hasn’t won a title in a very long time. We’ve talked about how difficult that is. But I just want us to focus on the things we can control. We don’t need to do anything we haven’t done; let’s continue doing what we’re doing. Almost everything we’ve done for nine months has brought us to this point. I saw all of that on Wednesday, and today we took a step backward. We need to learn from that. We have to be critical of ourselves and then pull ourselves together because we have an important match on Wednesday.

We need everyone. First and foremost, everyone needs to be healthy and available. The players who are not with us right now are extremely important, and we need them back so we can be much stronger. The rest of us need to improve our game,” Arteta stated.