Mikel Arteta was happy with the three points in Prague but not with much of what came after half-time, and he took the blame for it himself.
Arsenal beat Slavia Prague 2-1 on Wednesday night to move on to 10 points in the Champions League. Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyökeres scored before the break, but the hosts finished with 17 shots to Arsenal’s 12 and pulled one back late on.
Speaking after the game, the Arsenal boss was asked about the second half more than once. He also explained why Ezri Konsa came off, defended his decision to start Declan Rice and gave Gyökeres some of the warmest praise he has had this season.
What did Arteta say about the second half?
Arteta split the night into two very different halves. In the first, he said, Arsenal played “at a really high level in terms of tempo, intensity, quality and clarity”, and he felt the 2-0 lead should have been bigger: “Scored two goals, it should have been three, four or five. We didn’t make that gap.”
He said the half-time message was that the job was not done, because Slavia are a side with “huge spirit, huge conviction”. Then it went the wrong way. In Arteta’s words: “Right from the beginning, we were extremely far from our standards in everything that we have to do, in every basic, in every concept.”
When he was pushed on the reasons, he kept some of them back. “I already mentioned a few things and some others that I will keep to myself,” he said.
Three away games, but no excuses
Arteta pointed out that this was Arsenal’s third away game in the league phase, and that he thinks they are the only team to have played three away and one at home so far. He did not want to hide behind it, though: “I don’t like to use that because in the first half, what we did was at the level that we want… And the second one, so much to improve. So, I take full responsibility for that.”
Is Ezri Konsa injured?
Konsa was one of Arsenal’s first two changes, replaced by Cristhian Mosquera just after the hour, nine minutes after he had been booked. Asked whether the defender had felt his knee, Arteta did not give a full diagnosis, but he did not hide that something was wrong.
“Obviously he’s playing a lot. He’s played so many games in the last few weeks and he had some issues and we decided to take him off,” he said.
That matters with Hull City up next in the Premier League on Saturday. Konsa, who joined in a £51million deal from Aston Villa in the summer, has been a regular next to Gabriel while William Saliba worked his way back, and Rio Ferdinand was only this week calling him a top, top player that Manchester United missed out on.
Why did Rice start in Prague?
Rice wore the armband and was booked in the second half, and Arteta was asked whether starting him had been a risk. His answer was that the game needed him and the timing was right. “He was as well rested against Fleetwood. So he had a very good week to recover. It’s the second one that I play, not the fifth one. So we expect our players to be able to do that,” Arteta said, adding that Rice “had some very good moments”.
Gyökeres gets the praise he needed
The brightest part of the night for Arteta was his striker. Gyökeres set up Madueke’s opener and then scored himself, and Arteta liked the rest of his game just as much. “Not only the assist and the goal, but he was really connected to the team. Yeah, great news because I think he needed that performance,” he said.
He added that Gyökeres “understood really well when to appear” and used the spaces Slavia left in midfield. Asked whether the Sweden striker would now push to play every week, Arteta said that was a question for the player, but that every player wants to play every game and the job is to show that level when given the chance.
There was credit for David Raya too, who Arteta said “had to show his quality again. Much more than what we expected.” You can relive how the goals went in and how the night turned in our Slavia Prague 1-2 Arsenal match report.
Verdict: the right kind of honesty from Arteta
We like that Arteta didn’t dress this one up. Arsenal went into the night ninth, and we said before kick-off that Prague was where they had to climb back into the top eight. They did, and for 45 minutes they looked every bit the side Arteta wants them to be.
But 17 shots against is not the Arsenal way, and the manager knows it. The real worry for the weekend is Konsa. If those “issues” keep him out against Hull, the Saliba question becomes a lot more urgent than anyone planned for, and Arteta will want the first-half version of his side back very quickly.
