Arsenal edged a 2-1 win over Wolves in stoppage time. After the match, manager Mikel Arteta attended the press conference and bluntly stated that the team’s "passive" defending attitude was "unacceptable".
On the post-match dressing room atmosphere
Arteta: “There’s a sense of relief, but we’re also well aware that we should have had a much bigger lead. We created so many good chances in the first half but failed to take them, couldn’t score more goals – we missed a lot of opportunities on the pitch.We improved in that aspect in the second half, we really did.
We created more chances and scored one, but after that, there was a three-minute spell where we played quite poorly, defending very passively with terrible defensive habits. This performance is far from what we should be against a team that didn’t even have a shot on target.
They took their first chance when it came – that’s the Premier League. We scored late and won the game, so we’re relieved, but unfortunately, we definitely need to improve in this area.”
On the team’s fighting spirit and determination
Arteta: “That’s a very positive aspect, but sometimes I don’t attribute it to the team’s resilience and goals. No, it’s because of everything we did before. We should have killed the game off earlier, and that’s up to us. You have to praise Wolves and their performance. I watched their away game against Chelsea and their home game against Aston Villa – they played well but were unlucky not to win. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy match, but the mistakes we made that led to the goal made it much harder, which is unacceptable.”
On the team’s schedule this week
Arteta: “What we need to do now is recover – give them two days to relax a bit, then we have a full week to prepare. When we don’t train, the team’s form drops slightly and certain training habits start to deteriorate because you don’t use that opportunity to train and motivate each of them. Because we know the Christmas period fixtures can often decide the course of the entire season, and we have to give our all.”
On the lessons the team should learn from this game
Arteta: “Learn the lesson and move forward. Whenever you win a Premier League game, you should be happy. You should recognize the difficulties, but today we made it harder for ourselves – that’s a major lesson we must learn. When the opponents do something, that’s understandable; they did a lot to cause us trouble, but we should ensure we can do better.”
On how to avoid deep defending
Arteta: “We defended too deep. The goalkeeper got the ball, but we didn’t organize an attack – we just kicked it away. That’s our own problem.
We have to play the game the way we need to. We can control the outcome in a certain way, but that has to come from us. We can defend because they have many players going forward, and sometimes you can’t press them – that’s okay, but our defensive activity level has to be different from before.”
On not having a single on-target shot in the first half
Arteta: “Because we didn’t execute the right attacking combinations. When you have a great chance, usually we can hit the target but not score – time and time again, yes, it’s frustrating, but that’s football, and I hope we can do better.
At this level, you have to take your chances every time, but today we couldn’t, so that made it harder for ourselves.”
On whether there was any complacency in the team
Arteta: “I don’t know. Before the Brentford game, I told everyone to focus at 7:30, and today it’s an evening game – I forgot to say it. But if we want to win the game in the end, we have to be fully focused on the game itself. So there’s nothing to question our fans about; this has to come from us.
In the last minute, everyone was cheering and jumping out of their seats – that’s normal and completely understandable. I hope we can do that from the first minute.”
On our style of play in the final minutes of the game
Arteta: “We have to go all out from the first minute to the 96th minute. Sometimes we tried, but it didn’t work, and maybe we weren’t calm enough in key moments. I don’t think it was intentional, but it was the case for a period after scoring in the second half. But that’s not what we want, that’s for sure – we have to do better.”
