Mikel Arteta rallying cry as Arsenal prepare for Dubai trip after Carabao Cup exit | OneFootball

Another trophy chance goes up in smoke as the Gunners look to regroup

Mikel Arteta has told his Arsenal players to “swallow” their Carabao Cup defeat to Newcastle and return from Dubai recharged to fight for the Champions League and Premier League.

Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon struck in either half for Newcastle, who won the tie 4-0 on aggregate.

Arteta admitted afterwards that the defeat was “painful” and Arsenal’s attention now turns to the Champions League and Premier League.

Arsenal are heading to Dubai for some warm-weather training on Thursday as they are not in action again until a week on Saturday.

We need to swallow this one, it’s a tough one ... there's nothing we can do right now

Mikel Arteta

“We need to swallow this one, it’s a tough one,” said Arteta. “We had a lot of expectations, we knew the difficulty of the task because of the result that we brought from London, but there's nothing we can do right now.

“What we could do is, we were on the pitch a few minutes ago, now we have to look forward. First of all, I think this is going to be a painful one and while we are in Dubai, recharge and then go again because we have still a lot to play for.

“When you want to be in the cup finals, you want to win trophies, at the end those are hard. They’ve been really effective in the box in the last two games that we’ve played against them and we haven’t. Overall, that was the main difference.

“It’s true that today we’ve been a bit more unsettled, especially when the game became more chaotic or when they were very direct with their play.

AP

“Normally we are much more composed, today we lacked a bit of that and the game went away from us.”

Arsenal were uncharacteristically shaky at the back and they gifted Newcastle their second goal.

Goalkeeper David Raya played a poor pass to Declan Rice, who was tackled on the edge of the area and Gordon punished the Gunners.

“When we did that, we always looked vulnerable because we allowed them to run from this situation and they are really a dangerous team when they are able to do that. Certainly, they don’t want to do that, so what can I say?”