Time to wrap things up. Arsenal’s players and supporters will be remember 2 February 2025 for a helluva long time, hopefully forever. Goodnight.
Pep Guardiola’s reaction
[John Stones says the dressing-room is an angry and emotional place…] It has to be when you lose a football match like that, especially the last 25 minutes. It’s not easy to start the game 1-0 down but the team reacted really well again, I would say until 2-1, maybe 3-1. After that we lost it*.
At 1-1 we had an action, we tried to find Omar [Marmoush] and start a two-v-one with Savinho, and we lose the ball, they shoot, deflection… Then we concede another goal and another goal and another goal.
In the first half we controlled the game, but I can’t defend the players – or myself, first, of course – for the last 25 minutes. The rest of the game we played well; that’s my feeling.
[Are you saying the players didn’t follow the gameplan?] No, the players are proud, they wanted to solve it. We have to do it together against a good team. In the first half Arsenal were a little bit scared but when it went 3-1 they were confident. In that moment, you have to do what you have to do.
[Why do you keep collapsing under pressure?] No, every game is different. It’s football. You have to know in certain positions when there is a risk. But the really is that we played long balls. And what happened every time we played long balls?
[You lost it]
We lost it and they came back stronger. Winning balls against Saliba and Gabriel is not easy, not even for Erling. The last 20 minutes we were tired and affected emotionally. Football is sometimes about moments – you have to resist and then come back in the good moments.
[On Haaland barely touching the ball] He has two central defenders and two holding midfielders so narrow. Sometimes it’s not easy to find him. You have to be patient.
[Why are you losing the ball more often in dangerous areas?] Maybe the opponents are more aggressive. Sometimes it happens but this season we have gone behind in many, many games and lost points.
[Are you in transition?] We will see. We will see. The players are getting old, just like the manager is getting old; it’s normal. But we’re still in February, there are a lot of games to play.
* I’m not sure he meant this in the colloquial sense, it was hard to hear what he said afterwards.
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