Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta moved to answer critics who labelled his side as “bottlers” after a draw with Wolves. The result reopened memories of recent late-season declines, with statistics highlighting a drop-off toward the end of three of the last four Premier League campaigns. Arteta rejected that shorthand for the club’s situation.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s individual opinion, and you have to respect that,” he responded. “You lose two points against Wolves in the manner that the game played out, and you have to take it on the chin. That\u2019s it. It\u2019s part of our role.<\/p>\n
“But it\u2019s not part of my vocabulary and I don\u2019t see it like this because I don\u2019t think anybody wants to do that as an intention. I wouldn\u2019t use that word.”<\/p>\n
Arsenal have led the Premier League for the majority of the season and remain in contention across multiple fronts as they pursue a Quadruple, with progression in the Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup still possible. Yet a recent run of just two wins from seven matches has intensified rival supporters’ reminders of past late-season faltering.<\/p>\n
Arteta pointed to injuries as one recurring factor in the team’s difficulties and placed emphasis on how the squad responds to setbacks. “When we haven\u2019t been at our standards, I take full responsibility for that,” he proclaimed. “I don\u2019t think I have ever pointed at a single player or the team.<\/p>\n
“I can talk about standards, yes, and in the second half [against Wolves] we weren\u2019t at our standards, which is normal when we play the amount of games we play as well, but if there is anyone who is responsible, that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n
“We have a very clear instruction. We have to live in the present, and the present is beautiful.<\/p>\n
“We are exactly where we want to be in every competition. So, keeping calm, keeping my eyes open, my ears open, and understanding what the players need to give their best.” <\/p>\n
His message was measured: accept criticism where it applies, protect the group from reductive labels, and focus on recovery ahead of the crucial weeks that remain in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta rejects ‘bottlers’ tag after Wolves draw, cites injuries and accepts responsibility. He says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1066,1047],"class_list":["post-6999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-carabao-cup","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6999","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=6999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}