Bellerin makes worrying admission after Slavia Prague stalemate

Hector Bellerin made an honest assessment of Arsenal after a late goal saw them play out to a ‘disappointing’ result against Slavia Prague.

Hector Bellerin made the concerning admission that Arsenal were effectively beating themselves after letting a late one-goal lead slip to draw against Slavia Prague on Thursday.

The Gunners dominated their Czech opponents in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie but spurned a glut of chances which eventually came back to bite them.

It took until the 86th minute for Arsenal to find a breakthrough despite carving out a number of golden opportunities, with Nicolas Pepe finally getting them off the mark.

However, their lead was short-lived as Tomas Holes headed home from a corner deep into stoppage time, leaving Bellerin to concede it was Arsenal who were solely to blame.

“I have to say felt like we had the game under control the whole time but the last five minutes,” Bellerin said as per the club’s media after the game.

“We had chances to score but go to the 85th minute at 1-0. Then it’s about us controlling the game managing the game.”

💬 "I think when you put yourself 1-0 up, there are better ways of managing the game than what we did. Us players, we take full responsibility."

📺 Watch Hector's full post-match #UEL interview 👇
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) April 8, 2021

“We put ourselves in situations that we shouldn’t be in at that stage. It’s in our hands. And I’ve said it before teams aren’t beating us but it’s us losing the games.”

Similar to head coach Mikel Arteta, Bellerin singled out Arsenal’s problems as failing to make the most of their chances.

Asked why Arsenal were struggling to do so, he replied: “Well I didn’t think that apart from the last five minutes that the game was not under our control. You look at the first half or parts of the second half they didn’t create anything. Or at least nothing that they deserved to be on top of us.”

“In the other side we were controlling the game, had chances where we could have gone 1-0, 2-0, but this is football, this is Europe and it’s (about) the team which scores the most goals and we didn’t do that today.”