On January 8 at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal and Liverpool huffed and puffed their way to a 0-0 draw. It was a night of very few clear opportunities. Conor Bradley hitting the crossbar was as close as anyone came. Mikel Arteta’s team dominated possession in the first half but struggled to break down a stubborn Liverpool defence.
After the drab draw, the Arsenal boss gave his reaction to the draw and discussed Viktor Gyokeres’ performance, where the Swedish striker touched the ball eight times in his 64 minutes on the pitch. A missed Gabriel header deep in injury time was as close as the Gunners came in the second half.
Arsenal Draw 0-0 Against Liverpool at the Emirates
Mikel Arteta Discusses Arsenal’s Performance
Reflecting on his team’s performance, Arteta said:
“Obviously, we wanted to win the game, but we didn’t manage to do that. We were much better in the first half to do that.
“We had more domination, but in the second half we struggled to dominate. We gave some really bad passes, we weren’t compact and they started to drop everyone behind the ball. But they had the ball without being able to have a single shot on target.”
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“The movement was there, the arrival was there, the players was there. Today we missed that, but we were so disciplined that we conceded nothing against the champions,” added the Gunners boss.
Discussing his team’s injuries and delight at still being top, Arteta said: “I have to really praise the team, to come out of this period with all the injuries we had to be in the position that we are.”
Gabriel Martinelli Incident
Reflecting on the incident involving Gabriel Martinelli shoving a clearly injured Conor Bradley, the Gunner manager said: “Knowing Gabi, if anyone knows him he’s a lovely guy and he didn’t realise what happened and hopes that Conor is well. Probably he didn’t recognise what happened. I will speak to him.”
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“They are the champions let’s not forget that, two days we have to prepare and then we play again,” said Arteta hinting at the clubs packed fixture schedule in January.
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