Mikel Arteta laid into his Arsenal players after their second defeat in less than a week – admitting his team deserved to get “slapped.”
A 2-1 defeat to Brighton delivered the latest blow to the Gunners’ Champions League chances – and had their manager demanding a reaction.
Arteta said: “What happens now is we criticise ourselves a lot, get slapped again because we deserve it.
“We were really poor again the first half and we need to lift ourselves up because we know that this road is taking us nowhere – especially where we want to be. We have everything to play for in the last eight games.”
Goals from Leandro Trossard and Enock Mwepu put Brighton in control, with Martin Odegaard’s late strike sparking a fightback that was too little, too late.
Arteta was withering in his assessment of his team and their failure to respond to defeat to Crystal Palace on Monday.
He said: “The first half was really poor again. The reaction that we wanted to show and everything that we talked about we didn’t make it happen on the pitch. We were sloppy with the ball, we were second best again. We didn’t show any purpose or build any momentum in the game or play with speed or transform the game that Brighton proposed today.
“It was not a problem of attitude, for me it was a problem of the approach and the courage that we showed and we didn’t have that purpose. I know that we didn’t have that intention to attack and step in and provoke the situation we want to provoke and we were looking at each other too many times instead of taking ownership and doing what we have to do.
“You cannot play like that. You have to make yourself count and step in and today we didn’t do it.”
Arteta also insisted his team cannot use injuries to Thomas Partey and Keiran Tierney as excuses for the collapse of their form.
“With all of the team available we know how difficult the challenge is,” he added. “With those two big injuries it makes the situation more complicated.
“We cannot look at that because we are going to be looking for excuses. What happened today is down to us with the players we have and the way we have prepared for the game.”
