Mikel Arteta described Arsenal\u2019s defeat to Bournemouth as a \u201cbig punch in the face\u201d and said his players had to \u201cstand up for the fight\u201d as they prepare for a crucial week in the Premier League title race.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were unable to extend their lead at the league summit after suffering a 2-1 loss to Bournemouth at the Emirates on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s side remain nine points clear of second place Manchester City, who have two games in hand, and the two sides meet at the Etihad next Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery disappointing obviously, it\u2019s a big punch in the face, and it\u2019s about how we react now,\u201d Arteta told TNT Sports after the match.<\/p>\n
Arsenal trailed to Eli Junior Kroupi\u2019s first-half opener, before Viktor Gyokeres levelled the scores from the penalty spot on 35 minutes. Bournemouth\u2019s Alex Scott slotted home 16 minutes from full-time to consign the league leaders to defeat.<\/p>\n
Arteta said his side \u201cdid a lot of strange things\u201d during Saturday\u2019s loss and criticised their efficiency when they created positive openings.<\/p>\n
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\u201cCredit to them (Bournemouth) for what they\u2019ve done,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen we had a lot of opportunities in the first half, when we break the press, regain the ball, to run, to open the spaces, we were far from efficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first opportunity they have to attack the box is a deflection, we have a really bad defending action, it costs us the goal. That\u2019s emotionally something we have to deal with. We try to recover, try to push them. (When) we score the penalty you expect a different game. We did a lot of strange things today I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manchester City play Chelsea on Sunday. They could narrow the gap between them and Arsenal to three points, and have a game in hand, should they win at Stamford Bridge and beat Arteta\u2019s side next weekend.<\/p>\n
The Arsenal manager called for an instant response from his players ahead of a key week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has to hurt, and we have to take it on the chin,\u201d Arteta said. \u201cThere are no grey areas now. You stand up and go for the fight or you\u2019re out, and that\u2019s it. That\u2019s what this level\u2019s going to require now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsenal return to action against Sporting CP in the Champions League quarter-final second leg on Wednesday and lead the tie 1-0.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mikel Arteta described Arsenal\u2019s defeat to Bournemouth as a \u201cbig punch in the face\u201d and said his players had to \u201cstand up for the fight\u201d as they prepare for a crucial week in the Premier League title race. Arsenal were unable to extend their lead at the league summit after suffering a 2-1 loss to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/updatelive.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}