Mikel Arteta praised the effort and defensive work of his team in our goalless draw with Everton, saying elements of our game were ‘unbelievable’.
For the second weekend in a row we restricted our opponents to very little going forward, but couldn’t take advantage of the chances we created.
Overall the boss said it was a frustrating afternoon: “Yes we’re very disappointed not to win the game because if there was a team obviously that deserved to win it that was Arsenal.
“We did everything that was necessary overall apart from the fact that we didn’t score a goal. We conceded absolutely nothing, dominated all the direct play, didn’t allow them to run and conceded no set pieces.
“But we go there in so many occasions, we created three or four big chances, didn’t score from there, and then the frustrating part is that at the end of those games when they come that way and you are able to do so much to restrict the opposition, which is very difficult to do, at the end you want to be rewarded for what you’ve done and the difficulty is that we haven’t tonight.
“It’s all the moments that we need to have a little more composure and more quality in those moments, that’s normal. That’s it. Tracking back? Unbelievable. Putting in the high press? Unbelievable. Dominating a lot of things? Unbelievable, but the disappointing thing is that you want to come away winning after what you’ve done on the pitch.”
This was our seventh game in the past three weeks, and we had played three times since Everton last played at all going into this fixture, but the manager said that fatigue was not the reason behind the dropped points.
“When we have to track back 70 metres, we are the best in the world by far,” he said. “It’s not about energy. The way they want it, unbelievable. The way they try. Every single player is playing with a purpose to make things happen. The frustrating part is that they are there. We are trying everything and not getting the points. We have to continue.”
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