Mikel Arteta, the manager of Arsenal, stated that his team is still mathematically in contention for the Premier League championship while emphasizing that “this is football.”
As they attempted to overcome a 19-year title drought, the Gunners had been in first place for the majority of the season.
The wheels have fallen off for Arsenal recently, though, under constant pressure from City, who have won 11 straight league games.
The last seven games for Arteta’s team have produced just two victories.
Arteta said to Sky Sports, “We have to apologize because the performance we had in the second half is not acceptable.
Though it is currently impossible to be thinking about (winning the league), mathematically it is still feasible because this is football. In order to respond drastically differently in the following game, we must first process the outcome and our second-half performance in order to understand why it happened.
If Arsenal loses on Saturday at Nottingham
Forest, City will win the championship for the sixth time in six seasons and for the third consecutive year.
Even if Arteta’s team rallies at Forest, City will win the championship if the leaders defeat Chelsea at home on May 21 or earn victories at Brighton and Brentford in their next two games.
Arsenal has exceeded expectations just by competing for the title, and they have qualified for the Champions League for the first time in seven years.
However, Arteta claimed that his team’s inability to rally after going behind to a header from Julio Enciso early in the second half is a warning sign for the upcoming season.
As Brighton made a significant progress in
qualifying for the European Cup for the first time in the club’s history, Deniz Undav and Pervis Estupinan added salt to Arsenal’s wounds in the dying minutes.
Arteta continued, “We gave up a goal, and the group didn’t respond.
“When we conceded the second foolish goal, the team broke down and was left with no solutions.
We need to address something if the team is capable of doing that.
Martin Odegaard, the captain of Arsenal, acknowledged that the title fight is now gone.
“Yeah, it feels like that,” the Norwegian said. Now that we must be honest, it will be very difficult. It is hard to handle.
“I don’t have a pleasant vibe right now. To be completely honest, I have no idea what happened based on the manner we performed, especially in the second half. It appears that there is no longer any hope.
Odegaard argued that his teenage colleagues had been mentally tough enough to handle the burden of the title race despite their late collapse.
“We wanted to come here and keep playing the way we have in the last two games, get a good result, and keep trying,” they said. It is a major letdown,” he remarked.
“We did a lot of excellent things in the first half and had opportunities to generate big chances, but in the second half we gave them more and more momentum.
“I don’t believe that mentality was a problem.
We were strong before the game, but what happened there was different, and we must accept that and draw lessons from it.
