Arsenal defender Jurri\u00ebn Timber urged calm after Saturday\u2019s 2\u20131 defeat to Aston Villa, arguing the squad must convert frustration into a constructive response rather than catastrophise. The loss, combined with Manchester City\u2019s win over Sunderland, cut Arsenal\u2019s lead at the top of the Premier League to two points, with Villa a single point further back.<\/p>\n
Timber was clear about the need to learn from the setback. “I think in the end you need to use it as a motivation and in the end as a strength, because it happened and we need to accept it and we need to get better,” he said. “Within the season, these moments happen, setbacks, and you just have to step up after that.”<\/p>\n
The defeat should, according to Timber, sharpen Arsenal\u2019s response rather than prompt panic. If any complacency had been creeping in, the manner of the loss ought to have removed it. Attention now turns quickly to a home game against a struggling Wolverhampton Wanderers side, followed by a trip to in-form Everton on Dec. 20.<\/p>\n
Before those league matches Arsenal have a Champions League assignment that offers a chance to steady the collective mood. The team travels to Belgium to face Club Brugge as they look to consolidate their position atop the group stage standings.<\/p>\n
Form and availability have complicated Arsenal\u2019s position. It feels like only a few weeks ago that some were already ready to hand Arsenal the Premier League trophy, but since a 2\u20130 win over Burnley at the start of November the Gunners have won two of five Premier League games. Over the same period Manchester City have won four and dropped points only once.<\/p>\n
A more immediate concern is the injury toll in central defence. Starting pair Gabriel and William Saliba are sidelined, and backup option Cristhian Mosquera also picked up an injury during the midweek win over Brentford. Timber, who had made the right back spot his own, started at centre back on Saturday alongside Piero Hincapi\u00e9. Fellow full backs Ben White and Riccardo Calafiori have also filled in there, but the depth and cover are being heavily tested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Timber urged Arsenal to turn the Villa defeat into motivation as injuries test defensive depth. amid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[984,1047,199],"class_list":["post-4958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-ben-white","tag-champions-league","tag-cristhian-mosquera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958","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=4958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}