What did you make of that game?
Very disappointed that we haven’t won the game because the game was there for the taking. We haven’t won it because we lacked discipline in certain moments to defend certain actions, and we weren’t ruthless enough in their box.
What did you think about VAR’s call to overrule Martinelli’s goal?
I haven’t seen the action but what they said is that it was a soft foul so it’s just consistency. The soft foul on Bukayo Saka with Mings is not a penalty last week, the soft foul against Aaron Ramsdale when we concede a goal against Villa, it’s a goal. So just consistency. There’s nothing we can do now, it’s too late, but it’s just consistency.
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Were you too naive with the goals in the second half?
We lacked discipline. We concede the first goal where after the action in the contact with Bruno we’re still three-vs-three but we don’t follow our principles and we concede the goal when it’s two against one. After that it was all us, chance after chance, imposing ourselves in the way we wanted. I said at halftime to the boys ‘the game is there for the taking, if we play with more courage we’re going to win the game.’
After the 1-1 it should be two or three one and then in our best moment we gave the ball away in a dangerous area and on top of that we stepped in when we can never do that in a dangerous area against that team and we suffered the goal. It’s a big lesson. If you want to win here you have to do everything so right and especially if you don’t do it there in the opponent's goal with the number of chances we created.
Did you notice anything different about United?
I’m not here to talk about United. What I saw is a very different Arsenal team that came here and played the way we wanted to play against these world-class players and unfortunately we couldn’t get the result we deserved.
Does this defeat show that the team has a lot to learn?
To be consistent with the top teams and challenging at the top of this league, you have to come here and play the way you want to play but win, and then it’s a very different story. To play the way we played here today, I want to see how many teams do that this season.
How do you stop this from having a lingering impact on your side’s confidence?
It won’t happen. That won’t happen because the performance is there and we know what we lacked today - the details to lose the game. You are here and you have a very different performance with the same result and then it’s a hard one to take because you are questioning your level. I don’t think there’s any question about the level there.
With injuries to key players how difficult is it to keep balance in midfield?
You haven’t heard me (talk) about that and I don’t want any excuses because these are the players we have. For me, they are the best players. We give them confidence and belief and with those players, we play here the way we played. That’s it. That’s not going to change.
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