Arteta frustrated as Arsenal dominate but held to a draw

11/10/2024 02:15 PM

Mikel Arteta spoke to Sky Sports after Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this afternoon.

Here’s what he said to say.

If he’s happy or frustrated?

Both, I would say, but obviously the disappointment of not getting those three points is bigger and it will be bigger tomorrow probably and after watching it back because, again, the team stood up.

I think we dominated them, I think we were the better team in many phases and many situations in the game, but as I said going ahead as well, very disappointed where we conceded the goal so poorly, it’s not in our standards.

We don’t accept it and after that, again, the reaction of the team, unbelievable to come here against this team to cause them problems and how aggressive we were. I’m really proud of them, but at the end, we are here to get the three points and we didn’t manage to do it.

What particularly disappointed you with their goal?

It’s a second phase set-piece. We are disorganised because the set-piece is organised in a different way to the low block. We don’t reorganise quick enough and then the ball is inside, you cannot allow a pass that way. And then, of course, there is the quality of Neto, but still, what we do between the defenders and the keepers, we didn’t defend the spaces and our standard is not good enough.

On an early tactical tweak to nullify Cole Palmer …

We had five minutes to defend better the space and understand the jumps and the spaces that we had to prevent. When we’ve done that, obviously, we’re much more dominant. We regained a lot of the balls and they became much more direct because they didn’t want to take the risk. We didn’t do enough with all the balls that we regained.

In open space, we should have damaged them much more. And after that, giving the ball away, sometimes we allowed them to run, which was the contrary of what we wanted. But after that, the team, it showed them again the commitment that they have to win and they are all disappointed, that’s the thing.

Was confidence an issue?

It can be a lot of things. Technical mistakes, decisions, sometimes it’s the opponent. But again, I’m very proud of the team, how they react, the confidence that they play here. They can play in a different way here. I’ve seen a lot of teams here, big teams play here, nowhere near what we’ve done. But we wanted the three points and we didn’t get them.

On Martin Odegaard’s return …

I just said to them, a player who’s been out for six weeks [ed note: it’s a lot longer], really barely trained with the team for two days, to be able to play at this level, 95, 96 minutes in the Premier League, it’s tough. It tells you about how he looks after himself and the leadership and the character that he has. Everything flows better when players are like this and the chemistry that they have with some of them, that’s something that we miss because with the injuries that we have, we have to change a lot of times.

The full-back, the defensive line, the midfield, the front line. Today we clicked much better. You could see that everything was flying. We see the difficulties that they have to adjust a lot of things in their high press. But again, it’s about winning.

Summing up the start to the season going into the Interlull…

In perspective, I would analyse everything better than right now, but obviously we had a very clear intention how we were going to evolve the team and what we could do as a team.

And that was about making the pieces in the car much better, much more efficient, more predictable. What we find out is that every day we have to change something big. You know, the engine, the wheels, the steering wheel, because we have problem after problem.

But the way the team adapts, normally the team goes down. And this team has an unbelievable energy and spirit and courage to play the way we want to play. So I’m very proud of them.

Do you now want to make the team more unpredictable?

Now my biggest fear is physically get everybody at their best, because we have players out there that they cannot play more than 60 minutes. They are playing and struggling, you know. And we have to change a lot of things and face a lot of things. So what I want on the international break is that we are fully fit and we have the squad equipped.

If we get that, I’m fully confident that we’re going to have a great season.

On Saka and Rice injuries …

They don’t look very good, to be fair. I don’t know [if it’s long term], but they both couldn’t finish the game, so not good.

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