Arteta reacts to Bournemouth defeat | Interview | News

Mikel Arteta shared his thoughts with us after Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth.

We were reduced to 10 men in the 30th minute when William Saliba was sent off for a foul on Evanilson and second half goals from Ryan Christie and Justin Kluivert ensured the hosts took all three points.

“A very sad evening, very disappointed with the result, it was a really difficult context again,” said Mikel. “It's hard enough playing 11 against 11 here. We made life very difficult for ourselves again by playing 60 to 70 minutes with 10 men, but I can't fault the players' effort, how much they wanted, how much they tried.”

“But in this league it's the third time in eight games that something like this has happened, it's just an accident waiting to happen, it's too difficult.

“It's very difficult because it's obviously not something you've planned for, especially at this early stage. Therefore, any solution becomes more difficult, especially given the number of injuries we have in certain positions. But we tried and it's incredible, the spirit and the work rate and how the guys tried.

“We understood it better and better, we didn't really concede anything apart from an action at the start of the second half and at 0-0 we had the biggest moment in the game when Gabi (Martinelli) was one on one with us, the goalkeeper and us “We didn’t manage to score the goal and on the other hand we conceded a set piece.”

Mikel also had a few words to our fans who were there in full voice throughout the game at Vitality Stadium.

“Thank you for the trip and welcoming the players,” he said. “Even though we lost the game, they can see it, they can see how hard we tried. Today we have ourselves to blame.

“Football is a sport full of mistakes. Today we made two big mistakes that cost us the game and we couldn’t change the game and we have to move on and learn the lesson.”