Mikel Arteta walks off after draw with Fulham & lamented that Arsenal gifted two poor goals

10-man Fulham walked away with one point against Mikel Arteta’s men at Emirates.

Mikel Arteta walks off after Arsenal shares a point with Fulham. The Gunners dropped two points when Fulham held them for a 2-2 draw. The Arsenal boss insisted it has not become a psychological issue after they conceded in the first minutes of a home game for the third time this year against Fulham.

Bukayo Saka’s blind pass let in Andreas Pereira to score for Fulham after just 57 seconds after the team made similarly poor starts against Southampton and Bournemouth last season.

Saka and Nketiah helped the Gunners to go ahead with one goal in the second half. However, 10-man Fulham scored another in the 87th minute to snatch a point from Arsenal.

Arteta lamented that Arsenal had gifted Fulham two poor goals, but hailed the way the players regathered their composure and went at their opponents after a bad start. They were one goal down for 70 minutes in the game.

“When in the first minute you make a mistake that we made and you give a goal to the opponent, the game becomes much more difficult,” said Arteta.

“The reaction after that, even the first half, the number of situations and chances we generated, we didn’t give anything away. We controlled the game for full periods, but we didn’t score the goal.

“In the second half we made some changes. The dynamic changed, we had better relationships. I think the subs (Nketiah and Vieira) made a huge difference and impact. I loved the determination and confidence they brought to the team.

“We go 2-1 up and then you have to defend the box with your life. You cannot concede a goal after everything we’ve done, because we should have scored five, six, seven.

“We had a big (error) here last year against Fulham where we gave a goal to (Aleksandar) Mitrovic. It’s part of football.

“I haven’t seen it (playing on the players’ minds). I don’t see that afterwards, the way the team played. In any other sport you would win by a hundred points difference, but this is football.

“We drew, we conceded two very, very poor goals. In the Premier League, when you give something (away), you’re going to get punished, and we were today.

“If I compare the game we played against Fulham this season and last season, we were at least 10 times better today than last season. We were much better than last season. Last season we won 2-1 in the last minute, today we drew 2-2.”

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