Mikel Arteta admits it is a ‘really difficult day to swallow’ after losing to Fulham (Picture: Getty)
Mikel Arteta was left furious after Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Fulham on New Year’s Eve and labelled it the ‘worst game of the season’ for his side.
The Gunners have suffered a serious dent to their title hopes having lost back-to-back matches in the Premier League to West Ham and now Marco Silva’s team.
Many have tipped the north Londoners for glory this term after they pushed Manchester City all the way last season but they now sit fourth in the table behind Liverpool, Aston Villa and Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions.
Bukayo Saka fired Arsenal ahead after just five minutes at Craven Cottage on Sunday but the home side turned it around thanks to goals from Raul Jimenez and Bobby De Cordova-Reid.
Speaking after his team’s loss, Arteta told the BBC: ‘Really tough day. A sad day. Three days ago [2-0 defeat by West Ham] we played a game we lost that we completely meant to win it, today was our worst game of the season.
‘The pace, the purpose we have in attack, defensively we were second best, we could not dominate and had issues because of that.
‘We didn’t do enough with that [possession] – not enough purpose speed or threat. We were sloppy with the ball.
Arsenal were ‘sloppy’ in possession, according to manager Mikel Arteta (Picture: Getty)
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‘It wasn’t good enough. We didn’t deserve to win. When you have opportunities to go top of league on December 31 and now end up with a really bad feeling, that is football. The lines are really thin.
‘If we play like we played in the other 19 games we will be up there [in the league at the end of the season].
‘If we play like today we will be nowhere near. Today was a really difficult day to swallow.’
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‘A really difficult day to swallow.’