Mikel Arteta was not afraid to back David Luiz up despite the Brazilian’s glaring mistakes against Manchester City.
Arsenal were holding their own in the first half until a short 25-minute spell of Luiz’s ended all hopes at the Etihad last night.
The defender first let Raheem Sterling through to score the opener and then very characteristically brought Riyad Mahrez down to give City a penalty. His sending off also brought Arsenal down to 10-men after which they could only manage to see out the match, 3-0. Fans were fuming on social media over Luiz’s errors, something we have seen happen plenty of times before.
Arteta told Sky Sports, “He has spoken in the dressing room. David is someone that is very honest and is straightforward. I’m sure he will talk to you guys and explain his feelings, but my opinion on David doesn’t change. The moment I joined, what he’s done for the team, what he’s done for me, it won’t change because he had a difficult performance.”
It wasn’t Arteta’s intention to bring David Luiz on for the game but Pablo Mari’s injury forced him to make that switch. When asked about Luiz’s future, the Gunners boss replied, “Whatever we’re going to do, or we did before today’s game, we will keep it internal.”
Other than Mari, Granit Xhaka too was sidelined into the first ten minutes of the match. This disrupted Arteta’s plans to hold off the onrush of City’s attack.
“Everything went wrong from the first minute, when Granit got injured and we had to change the plan a little bit,” Arteta said. “Every possible accident that could have happened, hopefully, happened today and not in the rest of the games we have ahead of us.”
Arsenal return to action on Saturday against Brighton & Hove Albion. Their’ hopes of a top-four finish is still alive even though, they are 8 points off the mark.
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