Arteta slams ‘nowhere near’ acceptable Arsenal in draw with Liverpool | OneFootball

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta slammed his team’s first-half performance against Liverpool as “unacceptable”.

The Gunners came from two goals down after first-half strikes from Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz to draw 2-2, thanks to goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Mikel Merino, before the latter was sent off for two yellow cards.

But despite the fight back from his side, Arteta warned his players that their first-half showing was “nowhere near” acceptable.

“What we did in the first half, in the first 20 minutes, is nowhere near the level so to do it after is too late,” he said.

“We reacted, great, but the standards in the first 20 minutes was unacceptable.”

Asked what he found unacceptable about his team’s performance, Arteta continued in his press conference: “A lot of parts, especially the defending standards that we had and the areas that after we gave the ball away, which is totally prohibited against this team, so very far off it, really upset.

“Yeah, we had a reaction, I hate reaction, I like action and especially we want to be there winning trophies. You want to be a moment that you win it or you don’t and when you don’t have to, you have to play another one that you have been working for nine months and that’s here today.”

Gunners forward Gabriel Martinelli also stressed the importance of his side not losing focus despite having no silverware to play for.

“It’s never easy to come here and play against them after not a good result against PSG,” he said.

“We play for Arsenal and we have to go to every game to win. We came with that mentality. We didn’t win the game but we did very well in the second half. We take the draw.

“We play for Arsenal, we can’t give up. We talked about pride and we have everything in the second half and did well.”