Mikel Arteta has revealed his concern regarding Arsenal's recent inabilities to hold onto two-goal leads after another collapse occurred against West Ham on Sunday. Despite flying into a lead in the seventh minute through Gabriel Jesus with Martin Odegaard doubling that advantage three minutes later, the Gunners will be heading back to north London with just one point.
The collapse against David Moyes's side comes seven days after throwing away the same lead to Liverpool at Anfield. Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli were the duo on target that afternoon but goals from Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino saw the game finish level.
A penalty from Said Benrahma brought the Hammers back into the game, but Bukayo Saka had the chance to restore the two-goal lead from the penalty spot. However, despite scoring from 12 yards in crucial moments against Liverpool and Manchester City, the 21-year-old fired wide.
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No less than two minutes later, Jarrod Bowen had levelled the game and Arsenal were perhaps fortunate to come away with a draw after Michail Antonio struck the post late into proceedings. After the game, Arteta delivered his verdict on the performance of his players, pinpointing a moment in the game that has riddled him with worry.
"Started extremely well again," Arteta said in his post-match press conference. "Dominated the game, dominated the pitch and scored two beautiful goals. After that we made a huge mistake to stop playing with the same purpose to score the third and fourth one and just thinking we could play around them and maintain the result and just looked too easy. At that moment we gave them hope.
"There is another moment where you could go 3-1 up after 50 minutes and probably the game is over. Two minutes after that you concede the equaliser. This is part of football. My worry is after 2-0 that we made that huge mistake and didn’t understand what the game required in the moment."
Arteta also told Sky Sports: "Very disappointing. The way we started was superb again, to go 2-0 up and you have the game in total control.
"Then we have to blame ourselves because we lost that purpose to really attack them. Instead we kept the ball for the sake of playing and we gave them hope. Obviously we conceded a terrible penalty, the way that we gave the ball away, and after that credit to them."
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