A clearly frustrated Mikel Arteta walked out of a live TV interview after Arsenal’s Premier League title challenge suffered yet another set-back.
The 1-1 draw at Manchester United leaves Arsenal 15 points behind the champions-elect Liverpool, who have played a game more.
Afterwards Arteta faced the cameras and was asked by Sky Sports’ pitch-side reporter Patrick Davison, towards the end of his interview, whether he regretted not signing a striker which has become a big debate around the club?
“No. It’s not about that,” the Arsenal manager said as he began to walk away with Davison then saying: “Mikel, one more? I have to ask you about the title race because it’s 15 points now…” Arteta said “no” as he left with Davison asking: “Is it too much?” Arteta said “thanks” as he quickly went out of shot.
Later, in his post-match press conference, Arteta was asked the same question about Liverpool’s advantage and whether it now meant the title race was, indeed, over. This time he gave a more measured response.
“I don’t want to say that, but today the frustration is that we haven’t won our game, we know the urgency and you’re obligated to win every single match,” Arteta said. “You won’t have any chance of doing that, I don’t think it’s the right moment to talk about that.”
However, Arteta regretted Arsenal’s inability to create chances despite their apparent dominance over United. Instead it was the home side who were denied the victory with three brilliant saves from Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya.
“When we had the first-half that we had where we were exceptional, we didn’t test the keeper,” Arteta said. “We had some unbelievable situations but we didn’t get the last shot or the last pass. We didn’t capitalise, we rushed the game, we started to lose duels and we could have ended up losing it.”
Much of the post-match debate centred on the one time Raya was beaten, as Bruno Fernandes scored directly from a free-kick just before half-time. The Arsenal wall was 11.2 metres back, rather than the regulation 10, and there was conjecture as to whether it had been placed like that by referee Anthony Taylor or whether Fernandes had moved the ball back to create more space.
“They just mentioned that. If Bruno is on that, football is for smart street players and if he’s done that and capitalised on that, he was more clever than us and the referee,” Arteta said before being asked whether it should have been allowed.
“I don’t know, but he’s done it, it was a goal, so they took advantage of that. Football is for clever people.”
Rice: ‘We were naive’
Declan Rice, the scorer of Arsenal’s goal, went further and accused the team of being guilty of “naivety”. “In the first-half, we had some beautiful bits of play but didn’t have that cutting edge,” the midfielder said. “In the second-half, we were very naive and almost gave the game to Man United. To get back in the game and to score and keep pushing. It’s probably a fair point in the end.”
Rice also questioned the position United’s free-kick was taken from. “I’ve not seen the goal back. It felt like the ball flew over us at a low height,” the England international said. “It [the wall for the free-kick] did feel far back. Anthony is the ref, he makes that decision.”
Rice added: “The chance at the end with Bruno and David making two great saves, that’s why I say that naivety. it was down to us and we could have thrown the game away.
“Like the manager said, we’ll keep going until the end of the season. Liverpool have been amazing all year. We’re Arsenal. We’ve been hit hard by injuries. We’ll keep going and we’ll be all right.”
