Arteta: 'Arsenal is 10 times better than last season'

"If we compare the two games against Fulham this season and last season, we have played at least 10 times better than last season. But last season we won 2-1 thanks to a late goal, and today we drew 2-2. ", said Arteta after the draw at the Emirates Stadium on August 26.

Arsenal beat Fulham 2-1 at Emirates Stadium in the English Premier League season 2022-2023. Martin Odegaard opened the scoring in the 64th minute, then Gabriel Magalhaes made a mistake in the penalty area to create conditions for Aleksandar Mitrovic to equalize. In the 86th minute, it was the Brazilian midfielder who made atonement to set a 2-1 victory.

Yesterday, the "Gunners" got off to a bad start with a goal conceding in the 56th second, when Bukayo Saka passed an error that allowed Andreas Pereira to finish with a touch from outside the box to fix the back of the running goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.

Arsenal have conceded a goal in the first minute in three of their last nine home matches at Emirates in the Premier League, against Bournemouth, Southampton and Fulham respectively, and are the first club in Premier League history to receive this sad figure in a year. calendar. "Gunners" also kept only four clean sheets out of 21 home matches in the Premier League since the beginning of last season. This is the worst number of the 17 teams participating in the tournament in the past two seasons, only after Fulham himself with three white-sheet matches.

But when asked about Saka's mistake that led to an early goal, Arteta replied: "Mistakes are part of football. Where you make mistakes and how opponents capitalize on them is the difference. Against Fulham last year, Arsenal They also make mistakes that lead to goals. That's part of football."

In two minutes from 70 to 72, Saka and Eddie Nketiah respectively scored to help Arsenal upstream. The home side was even more dominant when Calvin Bassey blocked Nketiah from the ball and received a second yellow card in the 83rd minute. But four minutes later, Arsenal's defense again made a mistake. The defender came on for Oleksandr Zinchenko lost the ball at home and Arsenal took the corner. Here, Harrison Reed made a low cross to Joao Palhinha to connect a diagonal touch to make the score 2-2.

According to Arteta, the early conceding made Arsenal play with pressure, although they controlled many balls but could not score. The Spanish coach tried to change personnel after the break to help Arsenal kick more smoothly and then lead 2-1. He said: "We led 2-1 and then you have to defend the box with your life and not concede a goal like that. Especially after what Arsenal did, because we should have scored five. , six, seven tables".

Kai Havertz received a lot of criticism for his lackluster performance at Emirates Stadium. Before making way for Fabio Vieira in the 56th minute, the German had only touched the ball 28 times, missed the target once, failed to dribble once, was offside twice and lost the ball four times.

Arteta noticed that Havertz had a lot of passing situations despite not being under pressure, instead of deploying the ball up front - something he wanted the whole team to do well. However, the Spanish coach believes that the students have many good running situations and will soon score goals to win the trust of the fans. The 41-year-old coach also praised the two substitutes Fabio Vieira and Nketiah for doing well, making the difference to change the game, and admitted having a headache choosing the starting line-up.

The result of a 2-2 draw caused Arsenal to break the winning streak from the beginning of the season, and run badly before the great war with Man Utd on September 3.