As a result, it means that Arsenal are look highly likely to finish as runners-up for a third successive season. They were second to Manchester City in the previous two campaigns.
After a 1-0 loss to West Ham last weekend, Arteta was pleased with the improved performance of the Gunners. And although it’s almost impossible they leapfrog Liverpool, who have played a game more, the Spaniard has challenged his troops to control what they are capable of.
What’s been said
The Arsenal boss said via the club’s website: “Today, the standards were very different to the previous game; the energy, the willingness to make things happened. We certainly tried many different ways, we dominated the game apart from one spell in the second half after one or two direct free-kicks where they had something in the box and one or two giveaways that allowed them to run, apart from that nothing. With the amount of situations we generated, with the moments we opened them up, we lacked the final pass, the quality on that delivery and certainly more shots on target to actually win it and be more efficient.
“It’s about what we can do, and it was like this a week ago, two weeks before, three months ago. That’s the only thing that we can control if we want to have a reach chance to do anything. Today we dropped two points, which is very painful again and we have to step up – we have the Champions League, we have a beautiful competition in front of us and we have to ready for Tuesday.”
Rice fumes
At full-time, Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice was spotted in angry exchange with team-mate Gabriel Magalhaes. On the incident, Arteta said: “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. I walked to the referees and our supporters, and didn’t see anything. They’re probably demanding each other – I really don’t know the topic that they discussed.”
Arsenal’s lack of cutting edge is chiefly because of their dearth of attacking options. Talisman Bukayo Saka has been sidelined since December, with fellow winger Gabriel Martinelli also unavailable, while strike duo Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus wont play against this season.
Saka latest
Arteta is hopeful Saka and Martinelli could be back after the international break next month. He said: “I think so but again let’s see how they evolve in the next few weeks to make the right steps and then after that, they’ve been out for a long, long time, so we’re going to have to integrate them as well gradually. They are evolving well but they’re still a bit far.
We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss where they are, especially Gabi, who probably has a chance before Bukayo to come in, but how soon that is, we’ll have to see how it evolves in the next week or 10 days.
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