Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said he and his players “deserve to be slapped again” after their lackluster performance in Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Brighton.
The Seagulls condemned the Gunners to their second successive defeat, with Arsenal now three points behind north London rivals Tottenham in the race for a top four spot.
This most recent loss comes at the end of a week that began with a 3-0 thrashing at Crystal Palace, and Arteta revealed that he and his team must feel the brunt of the criticism they will face if they are to come back stronger.
“It’s been a tough week, especially today because we wanted a reaction [to the defeat at Crystal Palace]”, Arteta said after the Brighton loss.
“He came in the second half, which is too late. We have to have courage and personality to play much better and raise the level in the first half.
“We made it very difficult for ourselves. We were careless, we didn’t have any attacking targets, we were very imprecise and we didn’t want to play forward”.
“We have shown for many weeks how well we can play. It’s been a tough week and we’ve lost some great players, but if you get what you want, it’s not going to be all blue skies.
“This is our team in good times and especially in defeats. There are many games left to play but we have to be concerned about that performance, especially in the first half.
“What happens is that we criticize ourselves a lot again, they hit us again because we deserve it and then we get up.
“We know that this road leads us nowhere, especially where we want to be. We have everything to play for in the last eight games and we have to have that energy and visualize the beautiful challenge ahead of us and not sit back and watch what happens.”
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