Mikel Arteta was clear and blunt after his team\u2019s winning run came to an end at Sunderland. He described the performance as below what he expects and singled out the decisive defending.<\/p>\n
Sunderland opened the scoring when Dan Ballard took advantage of a breakdown from a long free kick punted into Arsenal\u2019s box. Ballard had a near identical move moments earlier and then evaded Declan Rice to crash a volley beneath David Raya\u2019s crossbar.<\/p>\n
Arteta said he felt \u201ca pain in my tummy\u201d at the end of his side\u2019s clean sheet streak and added, \u201cThey did really well and we conceded a goal that is not in our standards.\u201d Arsenal recovered to lead through Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard, but a late chaotic sequence from Ballard\u2019s flick-on allowed Brian Brobbey to level in stoppage time.<\/p>\n
On the result Arteta was forthright: \u201cThe last feeling is disappointment and frustration because we wanted the three points.\u201d He expanded on the cost of the draw: \u201cOf course it hurts, especially when it costs you points. We know that we have to do better, and even though we\u2019re conceding goals, there are things that we have to improve on the ball. I always mention that, and that\u2019s it. Learn from the past and get back.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no elaborate half-time address. The instruction was straightforward: win individual battles. Riccardo Calafiori relayed the message to the club website, saying, “[Arteta] just said that we needed to basically win our duels and then from there we could start to play our game, so that\u2019s what we did.”<\/p>\n
The statistics offer a mixed picture. Arsenal won 57% of duels in the first half, a ratio that fell to 52% after the break. Sunderland\u2019s late equaliser stemmed from the Gunners losing two duels in rapid succession, a sequence Arteta highlighted as avoidable and below the standards he expects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta criticised his players after Arsenal’s clean-sheet run ended as a defensive lapse cost points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172,689],"tags":[826,797,841],"class_list":["post-4344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","category-sunderland","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-dan-ballard","tag-david-raya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}