Mikel Arteta has admitted that Arsenal’s players were “very upset” and “fuming” during their concerning pre-season defeat by Real Betis.
The Gunners went down 3-1 to LaLiga opposition in their latest friendly played at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium on Wednesday night, conceding all the goals in a hugely disappointing first half that included costly errors from both Kepa Arrizabalaga and Kai Havertz, though there was another assist for new signing Christos Tzolis as he teed up Piero Hincapie’s header.
It was a thoroughly disjointed performance from an Arsenal side still missing a number of key players and easing others back in gently following their post-World Cup breaks, with a total of 25 players used across the 90 minutes.
Asked to describe the reaction in the dressing room after a nightmare first half against Betis, Arteta said: “Very upset, given a hard time. They are fuming, but this is good. That's what we need.”
Though evidently disappointed with Arsenal’s performance, Arteta was keen for the result to be placed into the context of a disrupted summer and insisted that such a bad outcome would likely serve to “create even more fire in the belly”.
Reflecting on the display overall, he said: “Well the important part is to win it and we didn't manage to win it so disappointed obviously for the result. It's true we used 25 players, so you need to give a bit of context to the game.
“In the first half, with more starters, two very different things: how we played and how we competed, because we had some fantastic moments in the time we played.
“By the way, we competed especially in and around our box in a number of standards that we are used to so there are things to improve obviously, some positives to take from the game and then a bad result sometimes it's good to create even more fire in the belly.”
Arteta admitted that the knee injury suffered by versatile teenage midfielder Louie Copley just 10 minutes after his introduction at half-time against Betis “did not look good”, with further assessment taking place on Thursday.
However, the Gunners boss reserved special praise for fellow youngster Ceadach O'Neill, the Northern Ireland forward who impressed again during a late cameo off the bench in place of Ethan Nwaneri and has enjoyed a promising pre-season campaign so far.
“I've been really impressed with him,” Arteta said of O’Neill, 18. “What he says, he's really mature and really focused, and he has a tremendous quality to him.”
