Mikel Arteta admitted his Arsenal side deserved to lose to Newcastle United as their title hopes suffered a blow.
Alexander Isak’s first-half header gave the Gunners a third successive league match without a win. It follows the 2-2 draw against Liverpool and the 2-0 defeat against Bournemouth, which now leaves the North London club on the verge of losing the title race.
A frustrated Arteta said: ‘We deserved to lose today. I thought we started very well and were very dominant. We did not defend the box well enough, my compliments for that. They scored a beautiful goal with a good ball.
‘Then the game changes and you start playing a different game. You have to adapt and we haven’t done that well enough. I’m very frustrated.
“We got dragged into a game where they were constantly looking and we couldn’t play the game we wanted.
Mikel Arteta admitted his Arsenal side deserved to lose to Newcastle on Saturday
Alexander Isak’s first-half header proved to be the deciding factor in the game at St James’ Park
The Gunners only managed one shot on target throughout the match
‘We had two big chances: Mikel (Merino) had a big one, Declan (Rice) had a big one. We lacked answers.’
On their closeness to Man City in the title race, he added: ‘I understand that, but after eight, nine or 10 games last year we didn’t (talk about it) and we won’t talk about it now.
‘It’s about how you respond to that. We won’t find the right words or answers to describe how we feel. We have to put it on that pitch against Inter (Milan) on Wednesday evening.’
William Saliba, returning from a one-match suspension, was also frustrated by the performance and echoed his manager’s assessment.
Saliba said: “We are all a bit sad because we wanted to win today. Unfortunately we didn’t do that and we didn’t play the game we wanted to play. I think we deserved to lose today.
‘I have to be better than my last match. I wasn’t very good. I have to get back to my good level. If I’m good, we will get better, but I have to work on getting back to my best level.”
Eddie Howe was glowing about the Magpies after Newcastle broke a five-match winless streak in the league with an inspired performance.
Howe said: ‘You have to have a very strong mentality and know that if you keep doing the right things, the results will change.
Isak met Anthony Gordon’s cross and nodded past David Raya after just twelve minutes
Liverpool’s come-from-behind win over Brighton puts them seven points ahead of Arsenal
“Today’s performance was based on hard work, desire and very good defending in the second half. I thought we looked good.”
On Arteta’s comment that Newcastle are dragging teams into the style of play ‘they are constantly looking for’, he added: ‘It’s not relevant to me what it says at all, apart from my team. That’s how we’ve always looked at it.
‘There is always outside noise, wherever it comes. We just try to do what we do to win games on a consistent basis.”