Once again, Arsenal gave up a two-goal lead and ended up with a 2-2 against West Ham. Last week, it was the same story for the Gunners facing Liverpool at Anfield. Now, Mikel Arteta’s squad has left behind four points in a span of seven days and the race to be Premier League’s champion is wide open.
Currently, Arsenal are leaders with 74 points after 31 matches played. However, they no longer control their destiny as Manchester City have 70 points with one pending game. By the way, to make things more interesting, both teams face next Wednesday at Etihad Stadium.
The last time Arsenal won the Premier Leaguewas almost two decades ago. Now, when everything seemed to be going smoothly, the title might slip away. Considering this scenario, Mikel Arteta had a shocking message for his players after a tie with West Ham.
Mikel Arteta is worried ahead of game against Manchester City
Arsenal had a 2-0 lead after only 10 minutes against West Ham. However, as it happened at Anfield, they couldn’t hold on to it. Furthermore, Bukayo Saka missed a crucial penalty kick in minute 51′. Mikel Arteta spoke loud and clear about it,
“Well, it started extremely well again and dominated the game, dominated the pitch and then scored two beautiful goals. After that, we made a huge mistake. Stop playing with the same purpose to score the third and the fourth one and just think that we can play around them and maintain the result.”
According to Mikel Arteta, Arsenal are the only ones to blame. “It just looked to easy and, on that moment, we gave them hope. Credit to West Ham because they took it. They did what they did really well. They started to play extremely direct from there. They went to a long throw, from the corner and we really struggled to get out of that game. Then there is another moment when you can go after 50 minutes 3-1 up, and probably the game is over, two minutes later you concede a goal.”
Looking ahead to the blockbuster matchup with Manchester City, Mikel Arteta looked really concerned about what he saw against West Ham. “This is part of football. My worry is after 2-0 that we made that huge mistake and don’t understood what the game required in the moment.”
