Mikel Arteta: ‘We are extremely disappointed’

Everything points to the fact that Arsenal is blowing away its insurmountable lead over Manchester City.

Arsenal lost their third game in four in all competitions on Saturday afternoon at the Emirates Stadium against Bournemouth. The defeat has given Manchester City renewed hope that it can challenge for the title.

The Gunners could have extended their lead over Pep’s City to 12 points with a win, but surprisingly lost 2-1. Manchester City will cut the points to six with a win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon, where they can further cut the lead to only three points when the two teams meet next Sunday at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester with a win.

After the disastrous defeat against Bournemouth, Arsenals under fire manager Arteta expressed his disappointment in the defeat against the Cherries.

“Extremely disappointing,” Arteta said. “It’s a big punch in the face. That’s what I said to the boys. It has to hurt. They have to take it on the chin. You stand up and go for the fight, or you are out,” the Spanish manager added.

“There are no grey areas: we are in, or we are out. We need to be very, very strong and determined to approach it in a different way than we have today, especially when the game wasn’t going our way. Today, there were some basic things that we did extremely badly.

He continued, “There are no excuses. It’s about how we’re going to stand up, first of all, individually. And then as a team to change that immediately on Wednesday [against Sporting CP in the Champions League]”. Arsenal has one leg in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League, where they narrowly won 1-0 in Portugal against Sporting Lisbon in the first leg. The club will target a win on Wednesday night to boost their confidence ahead of the trip to Manchester City in the Premier League.

“We have to embrace it and especially enjoy the opportunity. That’s one of the things that I haven’t seen from the team today, that level of enjoyment in certain moments. That’s a fight that we have to have, to really change the course of the game when it gets difficult.”

Arteta is still confident Arsenal will win the league with six match weeks to end the season, albeit their rivals, Manchester City, have two games in hand.