Arsenal was beaten out of the Champions League on Wednesday and they are going to Anfield this weekend and were 15 points behind the Premier League champions Liverpool
Mikel Arteta has admitted that Arsenal has become 'backwards' this season.
Arteta was brutally honest that his team is inadequate in the Premier League title race prior to their trip to newly crowned champions Liverpool on Sunday. Arsenal has enjoyed a memorable Champions League campaign after reaching the semi-final phase, but they are currently more than twenty points behind last season's count.
The Gunners are on 67 points with three games to go, they still have not secured a Champions League place and will lower their total of 89 last year and 84 the year before. Gunners -Baas Arteta has been pronounced about how injuries and suspensions have hit his team, but they fell far behind Liverpool when it would be Arsenal who performed.
Arteta said: “In the Premier League we went a step back. With the points we have created, it is clear that we have not done as well as last season, that is clear. Yes, certainly in the Champions League that we have because we have done better than last season, but not what we want to win.
“It certainly hurt, if it doesn't hurt, it means that you don't like to win as I, that's for sure. But you also have to understand certain things that happen to understand.
“It was impossible to try to get the same kind of points, but what we did was to perform too much if we could do this, there are many ways to look at it when I sit down, look back and I will make much better reflection of it.”
Unbelievable, Arsenal has dropped points this season of winning positions on ten different occasions and also dropped points in 17 of their 35 games.
That is hardly title -winning form and Arteta is still smart about what he regards as the main reasons for this time.
Arteta said: “Well, the first with the competition has been two important reasons. One of them is the amount of games and time we played with 10 men, and then the availability of the team during the 38 games.
“It is very, very difficult to manage and to have very strong performance consistently. We dropped many points, we dropped many points when we were also at the forefront, which really had to improve.”
But Arteta also revealed how he finally looks at this season, because, despite some large European nights, they end the season empty -handed to make it for five years without a trophy.
Arteta was emotionally charged after their Champions League defeat against Paris Saint Germain and admitted that some of his players were in tears in the dressing room. But he is convinced that they will be ready to face Liverpool.
Arteta added: “Non -winning trophies disturb me a lot because I love winning and definitely hates losses. I don't judge that and there are two words, success and failure, they are not part of my vocabulary.
“It was a very emotional moment after PSG, a very sad moment. We have put a lot of hope and energy and we worked in it and we did not get the outcome. You have to go through it to become stronger and better and that is what we do.
“But now it is about this season because it has not yet been completed, we still have three games to play. I have demanded a lot more and expected much more, and then much more. And then much more. For me it is the only way to do it, for everyone to have really high norms and requirements.
“We are very close to reaching it. I understand the disappointment and the criticism. It is all part of it. At the end there is one winner and the rest will not win, so they have to reinvent themselves and do better. That is part of the cycle.”
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