Mikel Arteta was in the rare position of facing the media after a defeat on Sunday, as he had to digest just our third loss all season.
After a topsy turvy game in which we took the lead, came back to equalise and then ultimately lose, the boss conducted his post-match press conference.
He was asked about the result, the atmosphere, mental strength and more. Here’s a full transcript…
On the result…
First of all, congratulations to Man United for the victory. I think we started the game really well, the first half-an-hour we were very dominant, playing the areas that we wanted, scored a goal, had two fantastic chances to score another one. And after that we gave them the goal; errors are part of football, very unlike us, but we gave them the goal and hope, and that shifted the energy, because from then to half-time we really struggled, especially to keep the ball in the right areas after regaining the ball, what we had to do.
The game became a little bit open and without the dominance of the first half. After that, in the second half, they had two brilliant goals, some individual quality, a magic moment in big games, that's a good example of that, but with the changes I think we managed to shift the energy, score the second goal and you could feel that everything changed and the game was there to go and win it.
In the next action, Noni is one-v-one in the six-yard box, we don't get anything out of that, it goes to a goal kick, they close the structure, one pass, win the duel and Cunha puts it in the perfect angle to lose all the momentum, all the good energy that we were building up and to go and win the game for them so very, very disappointed obviously, but it's a moment, especially after losing, and the joy and everything that those players are giving us, and me in particular, to take responsibility myself and be very close to them because it's exactly what they deserve.
On if he felt nervousness in the stadium…
I don't know, but we have to understand that we all want to win and the crowd is trying to be behind the team to make the best decisions and to win the game and we need to go through that. We know what the players need and we're going to be playing much better in the next game like we did two-and-a-half days ago, one of the best and toughest places in Europe to go, against Inter Milan.
So we know that we were below par, especially in certain individual standards and when that happens the margin becomes very, very close and today they made those margins bigger because the individual quality that they have made the difference in the game.
On errors leading to goals…
Difficult to say. I think the first one probably leads to the second one, and the fact that you want to be more protective probably doesn't help to make those mistakes, because there were three or four [mistakes], to be fair, very unusual today in the game. They are part of football and sometimes you get punished and sometimes not and today we got punished and apart from that it has to be credit to the opponent for what they've done and in the manner that they managed to win the game.
On the difference between playing in the Premier League and other competitions…
Well it depends which game. The Liverpool game was very different, the first and the second half when we go to Forest and you look back, we conceded nothing and the five big chances that we didn't score, but that's the reality as well and we're playing every three days. I think to discriminate competitions is very difficult for me, at least to put individual performances of players or the collective, but it's a reality that we haven't won in three games in the Premier League and we need to pick up points now.
On Patrick Vieira’s assessment of the team’s mental strength…
That's fine. We accept every opinion when it comes and where it's coming from, and they will have the right reasons to say. At the end we have to show the mental strength that we have on the pitch when it comes to matchday and we were absolutely brilliant in Milan and today we weren't that good - I don't know if it was mental because of how much they play, but because we were poor, especially technically in certain aspects of the game against a team that when you make those mistakes, they can punish you big time and that was the difference.
On boos in the stadium at half-time…
That's part of the demands and expectations that we want to win and that's it, and individually everybody can react in the manner that they need.
On how to deal with expectations..
Doing what we have to do and doing what we've been doing for seven months, exactly that. And the position that we are still in today even though we have lost, I think it's the first time sitting here this season at home and we lost a game, so it's part of the journey to winning and if not, nobody will lose football matches, it's how we react to that and I am very convinced because I know those players in that dressing room and how much we want it that we're going to react immediately.
On how it feels to hear boos in the stadium…
It doesn't matter, we have to do more so maybe that's not enough and we have to do more, there is nothing else. We have to do our very best, when you do that you can rest in peace, and today we really certainly tried to do our very best, but we weren't efficient enough against a team that is very well organised and we got punished because of our own mistakes as well.
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