Mikel Arteta said: “The better team won the game. They were probably at their best in the first half and we weren’t at our level. In terms of the basics we didn’t do it.”
The defeat leaves Arsenal as many peoples second favourites to win the title next month, with Opta insisting that City have a 92% of retaining their title. However, Arteta declined to get invested in the statistics and heaped praise on his squad for their season so far.
Mikel Arteta said: “The stats at the start of the season said we’d finish sixth or seventh and we are where we are with five games to go. Those players deserve a lot of credit to go nine and a half months against this team doing what they have done. There’s still five games to go. Five. I’ve been in this country almost 22 years and I’ve seen a lot of things and I know how much it shifts from game to game. There are not easy games in this league. Let’s see. We have to lift our players tonight. We played against an exceptional team, we know that, but we are an exceptional team as well. Today we didn’t do the basics and understand what we needed to win the game.”
