Mikel Arteta says he has more belief in his players after losing to Manchester City on Wednesday night, as Arsenal’s Premier League title hopes suffered a blow.
City returned to top spot in the table with a 3-1 win at the Emirates, thanks to goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland.
Pep Guardiola’s men are only ahead of the Gunners on goal difference and have played a game more, so the title race is still very much on, but it was a huge win for the champions as they bid to defend their title.
Arteta, though, remains confident and claims that his team’s performance has encouraged him so much that he believes in them more after the defeat than he did beforehand.
‘I have more belief because I see a team that is going head to head with them,’ said the Arsenal manager.
‘We have to go to the next one, in three days we have another difficult game. but I have more belief in my players, yes.’
The Spaniard did admit that it was mistakes from his team that cost them against City, with Takehiro Tomiyasu most notably at fault for De Bruyne’s goal, while the Gunners also spurned chances themselves.
‘We lost it, and I say we because we lost it,’ Arteta told Amazon Prime. ‘It was an incredible battle between two teams and when we had them, we just gave them the goals. Absolutely gave them the goals.
‘And against this team they are going to destroy you and on the other hand we had three big, big chances and we didn’t put them away and this was the difference.’
Arsenal have a quick turnaround as they go to Aston Villa in the 12.30pm kick-off on Saturday, with Manchester City going to Nottingham Forest at 3pm the same day.
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