After losing the first match of the season against Hibernian, Mikel Arteta reacted to the Gunners’ first result of the pre-season.
Out of all the football clubs around the world, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal was the first squad to begin the pre-season matches. They are currently on a trip around Scotland, where they are playing against several local sides. The first rival of the summer was Hibernian, club that surprisingly defeated them. Boyle and Mackay scored for the Scottish side before Emile Smith-Rowe pulled one back for Arteta’s side. The Spanish manager was spotted quite disappointed with the result but he spoke to the media about the learning experience he went through.
It’s still early in the pre-season to deliver a more accurate conclusion about results like this one. Arsenal is only getting started with several academy players making the trip with the Gunners. Next up, Arsenal is set to visit Stephen Gerrard’s Rangers before making the bigger trip in order to start their summer tour in the United States. Once they arrive in America, the Gunners are set to face Inter Milan, Chelsea, and Tottenham Hotspur before starting the Premier League at Brentford.
Arteta expects further improvement from his players.
After the game, the Spanish manager spoke to the press about the match and what he can expect from the game against Rangers. This is what he told the club’s official website: “Well I’m always disappointed when we lose a football match but it is the first game, we played with many kids and we only had four training sessions. We’ve trained really hard and you could see that the players were a little bit leggy. I think we conceded the first goal, an accident, and the second goal was clearly offside.
“We created many, many chances but we didn’t score. That’s what pre-season is for, to take the things that we haven’t done well into a training session and then improve. It does but there’s no excuse because we want to come here and win the match. They worked really hard, the boys worked really hard and you could see that some of them were not in the best condition, but we’re still very early in pre-season. It was great to see some of the young lads making their debuts here. We’ll keep working.”
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