wicked.football

Mikel Arteta refused to blame Arsenal’s defensive shape and was disappointed with some of the refereeing after they were hammered at Manchester City.

Ferran Torres struck twice as Manchester City piled on the misery for Arteta with an emphatic 5-0 win over 10-man Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday lunchtime.

Pep Guardiola’s champions never looked back after taking a 2-0 lead inside the opening 12 minutes of a one-sided Premier League encounter with goals from Ilkay Gundogan and Torres.

The Gunners then capitulated after the sending off of Granit Xhaka with Gabriel Jesus, Rodri and Torres completing the rout.

“I am angry because of the consequences that it had to the team,” Arteta told BT Sport when asked about Xhaka’s red card.

“It’s a really quick action from [Granit] Xhaka, he tries to get his feet off the ground and the ref decided it was a red card.

“I must say that the line we are being judged with is really, really thin because we have seen actions like that in the first two Premier League games and nothing happened and I am disappointed.

“I am very disappointed with the second goal because of the way that they allowed that goal.

“The first goal was the most disappointing, we were in control of the game, we took the game exactly where we wanted to.

“The first action they have, we fail to stop the cross and Gundogan has a free header in the middle of goal. If you want to win this stadium, these are the basics you have to do right.

“The second goal we concede is a clear foul because he punches Calum [Chambers] in the face. Once we conceded after the red card you know what is going to happen.

“When we had to make decisions we look nervy. We stopped playing back to the goalkeeper.

“We need to make better decisions when we get into the final third – the one with Bukayo Saka, which I think is a push and another one with KT (Tierney).

Asked whether he got the defensive system wrong, he added: “We have played that system before, last week we played with a back four against Chelsea and lost.

“Every time you lose a game we understand that people say you should have played the other system. We understand that and have to accept it.

“I think we started the game really well and in the first situation they had the ball in our box and we defend the cross, we defend the run into the box, and then we are 1-0 down, so we tried to go again.

“I think we tried to create some situations, and then the second one, there was a hit and the referee allows it to go and then we are 2-0 down and after the red card (there was) obviously a mountain to climb.”

Give our social media channels a follow – we’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Arteta wants ‘pride’

Arteta thanked the fans and said he was “proud” of the support they gave, despite the result.

“When you lose games it’s impossible (to sell the idea of a project), but you saw we had 3,000 fans today and the way they reacted to the team and to the club and the support they were giving it was unconditional, that was why everyone went over to say ‘thank you’ and that was why I am really proud of that.

“I am sorry we cannot give them the result right now and we will have to fix it,” he told the BBC.

“For me it is pride and more willingness to change the situation. A lot happened in the last three weeks we are in a difficult position.

“The international break will do us some good to recover some of the big players we are missing at the moment. And hopefully we come back we are in a better place.”

READ MORE: Guardiola issues big statement, with three crucial reasons why Arsenal must keep Arteta

The post Mikel Arteta refuses to blame shape for Man City mauling appeared first on TEAMtalk.