Arteta rejects suggestion of being too defensive in games: ‘It’s certainly not intentional’ | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta insists it is not the intention of his Arsenal side to defend narrow leads in games and says his team wants to score more goals.

Arsenal drew their seventh league game of the season against Brighton on Saturday, with Joao Pedro’s controversial penalty equalising for the Seagulls after Ethan Nwaneri had opened the scoring.

The Gunners have been criticised at times this season for being too defensive when going ahead in games and not building on their leads.

But Arteta insists this is not an instruction he is giving to his players

“That’s what we tried to do against Brighton as well,” he said when asked if they need to be more ambitious in games. “That’s what we tried to do.

“But sometimes the opposition forces you to do that, sometimes you are not good enough in certain areas to allow you to do that.

“It’s certainly not intentional but you have to give credit to the opposition as well.”