Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will be furious after his players followed a worrying trend that the Spaniard admitted he has ‘no clue’ how to solve. The Gunners were frustrated to come away with just a point from their north London derby clash with Tottenham.
Son Heung-min twice pegged Arsenal back in the Premier League encounter. Cristian Romero’s own goal and Bukayo Saka’s penalty were not enough for Arteta’s side.
But it was Son’s second goal that would’ve frustrated the Gunners boss the most. It came within a minute of Saka putting Arsenal 2-1 ahead.
Arteta revealed last week that he has noticed a trend of his side conceding chances and goals within the first few minutes of games and straight after restarts. In three of Arsenal’s previous 10 home games before Sunday’s north London derby, they conceded the opening goal inside 60 seconds.
While Son’s goal does not quite come under that category, it will further annoy Arteta that it came immediately after a restart. The former midfielder prefers not to talk too much about the several quirks that have come under his leadership – including a spate of red cards and a lack of clean sheets.
But he admits he does not know how to stop the current problem. “I don’t have a clue. That is the reality with certain things,” he said when asked about the trend.
“We used to have a lot of people being sent off. And we used to always talk about it a lot. But the more we talked, the more we made it worse.
“And then we needed to keep more clean sheets. So we stopped saying about that and then we just get a first clean sheet in 13 games. So, I really don’t have the answer yet.”
It was an error by substitute Jorginho that allowed Spurs to race away, with Son converting James Maddison’s pass. However, Arteta has backed the Italian after his costly mistake.
Asked what happened with the midfielder’s error, Arteta snapped back: “What happened is I love him and we love him. Errors are part of football.
“They’re allowed to make errors because they play and we don’t play. For us it’s really easy, but if there is someone who is willing to help the team and do the most of it, it’s Jorgi. We are all with him.”
