Mikel Arteta admitted Arsenal’s Carabao Cup semifinal got away from them after being beaten 4-0 on aggregate by Newcastle United.
The Gunners missed out on the final after losing both legs 2-0, with the second at St James’ Park on Wednesday night decided by goals from Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon. Beforehand, Arteta said he hoped thrashing Manchester City 5-1 in the Premier League could give them momentum to overturn the first leg deficit. On the night, though, the result only ever looked to be going Newcastle’s way. Alexander Isak had an early strike ruled out for offside before Murphy opened the scoring in the 19th minute and Gordon added to the Gunners’ pain in the second half.
What did Mikel Arteta say?
“We had so many expectations to believe that we could turn it around. We didn’t generate momentum, especially in the first half, the game started in the first action almost with them scoring and then the goal being denied [ruled offside].”
Embed from Getty ImagesArsenal had chances to pull themselves back into the tie through early chances from Martin Ødegaard, but weren’t ruthless enough.
“We didn’t capitalize and in the next action, they scored the goal and obviously the game shifted and then you need to stay cool to score a goal as early as possible. We didn’t manage to do that in the first half, had another big chance, and then it was the second half, we started to struggle as the game went by. We didn’t generate enough situations in the final third and the game started to get away from us.
“When you want to be in cup finals and win trophies, in the end, those are [fine margins]. They’ve been really effective in the box in the last two games against them we haven’t. Overall, that was the main difference – it’s true that today were a bit more unsettled.
“Normally we are much more composed and today we lacked a bit of that, and the game went away from us.”
Analysing his side’s defensive frailty against Newcastle’s aggressive press, Arteta said: “The errors are part of football. We’ve been super consistent, we’ve been really composed and today we gave them hope just by putting the ball to the last line. When we did that, we always looked vulnerable.”
Embed from Getty ImagesAnother concern will be that Gabriel Martinelli had to be taken off in the first half due to injury. “He felt something, I think it was his hamstring, and he wasn’t comfortable to continue, so we have to have an MRI scan tomorrow to see the extent of the injury.”
Arsenal are now out of both domestic cups, but remain in the UEFA Champions League on top of their Premier League campaign. Asked if the packed schedule had contributed to their defeat, Arteta said: “I wouldn’t like [to say that]. Especially when we lose a game, physically we were tired and you know we played so many games, we played so many games every three days, and we knew that this was going to be a really high-intensity one. I think emotionally as well, it was a very different game that we needed to get there to believe right until the end that we could do it, and before that the game got away from us.
“We need to swallow this one, it’s a tough one and we had a lot of expectations. We knew the difficulty of the task because of the result that we brought from London, but there’s nothing we can do right now. What we could do was on the pitch a few minutes ago. Now we have to look forward, first of all I think this is going to be a painful one, and when we’re in Dubai [for a warm-weather training camp over the coming days], recharge and go again because we still have a lot to play for.”
Arsenal have the weekend off due to their elimination from the FA Cup last month. They are next in action on Saturday 15th February against Leicester City in the Premier League.
