Mikel Arteta admitted his Arsenal side deserved to lose at Newcastle this afternoon.
The Gunners were surprisingly lethargic at St James’ Park and could not find a response after falling behind to Alexander Isak’s 12th-minute header.
Arsenal slipped to fourth place in the Premier League following Nottingham Forest’s 3-0 win over West Ham but, perhaps more worryingly, they are now seven points behind table-toppers Liverpool.
It ends in defeat at St James’ Park.
We’ll move forward together. pic.twitter.com/GaSdsCeUiE
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) November 2, 2024
Arteta said: “We deserved to lose today. I thought we started really well and were really dominant. We didn’t defend the box well enough, credit to them. They scored a great goal with a good ball.
“Then the game changes and you start to play a different game. You have to adapt and we didn’t do that well enough. I am very frustrated.
“We got dragged into a game they are looking for constantly and we couldn’t play the game that we wanted.
“We had two big chances – Mikel [Merino] had a big one, Declan [Rice] had a big one. We lacked answers.”
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Too early to discuss title race
Arsenal could have moved within two points of defending champions and favourites Manchester City with a win after Pep Guardiola’s side were surprisingly beaten at Bournemouth.
But Arteta insisted it was too early to talk about the title race just 10 games in.
“I understand that, but after eight, nine or 10 games last year we didn’t [talk about it] and we won’t talk about it now,” he said.
“It’s about how you react to that. We’re not going to find the right words or answers to describe how we feel. We have to put it on that field on Wednesday night against Inter [Milan].”
Happy Howe
The win came as great relief to Newcastle boss Eddie Howe, whose side had gone five league games without tasting victory.
He said: “You have to be really strong mentality and know results will turn if you continue to do the right things.
“Today’s performance was built on hard work, desire and a lot of really good defending in the second half. I thought we looked good.”
