John Stones apologized with the supporters of Manchester City after their modest 5-1 defeat against Arsenal and recognized their performance in the last 15 minutes in the Emirates Stadium “not acceptable”.
The side of Pep Guardiola was well defeated by second place Gunners, who moved within six points from Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Erling Haaland has canceled Martin Odegaard's early effort, but Arsenal restored their lead when Thomas Partey's long -distance effort remained in off stones.
MyLes Lewis-Skelly made it 3-1 just after the hourly marking, while Kai Havertz and Ethan Nwaneri fell further to the score in the last quarter.
City suffered their toughest defeat in a Premier League-road competition since she lost 4-0 to Everton in January 2017, while they have now admitted four or more goals in a match for the fourth time this season, which is now the most time in A single campaign in the Pep Guardiola management career.
And Stones admitted that he and his teammates fell far under their standards at the Emirates.
“It's difficult. I don't think we're not losing well,” he told Sky Sports. “It is difficult to put into words immediately after such a game. Pride hurts. Sorry for the fans who have traveled to come and have a look.
“How we played in the last 30 minutes was not acceptable. We are not personal and collective. I am angry, personally upset about how the game ended.
“It is not nice to be involved, when you know it is not your team in those situations. Credit on Arsenal, this is not an easy place to come. For 65 minutes we sometimes played great football.
“We can't let those situations come on top of us. We stopped doing the things we meant.”
Thank you for your brilliant support in London
Safe Trip Home pic.twitter.com/HH0D4HIWF8
– Manchester City (@Mancity) 2 February 2025
Nevertheless, the city substitute called for solidarity while trying to respond from their latest setbacks.
“Many different things that I didn't discover why we don't pick up results,” he added. “The passion is there, the training and everyone has the right intention.
“We did not come where we are without difficult times, and that is now through everyone's career. We all have to stay together, that is an important point that we do not start pointing fingers.”
Guardiola agreed that City lowered their standards later and, with his side with 2-1 behind him on those stones, the head coach acknowledged that his players had to perform better in the light of adversity.
“I regret the last 15-20 minutes, the rest was a really good game in front of our side,” he said BBC. “It's hard to understand when you see the result, but this is my feeling.
“It happened all season. We give too many things away, we know that this cannot happen, it happened.
“You have to overcome [it]You cannot lose the check, it is 90-95 minutes. You cannot end the way we played, we could have scored three more, but the team must be stable. It doesn't matter what happened. “
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