Mikel Arteta has come under fire for his reaction to Arsenal’s exit from the Champions League at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain, with the Gunners trophyless for another year
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been branded ‘bitter’ by three-time Premier League winner Robert Huth for his reaction to the Gunners’ defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. The Ligue 1 champions booked their place in the Champions League final on Wednesday night.
That was at the expense of Arsenal, with Luis Enrique’s side beating the Premier League team 3-1 on aggregate. Following the game, Arteta claimed his side had been the better team over the two legs, despite scoring just once over the 180 minutes.
PSG were indebted to keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma making a number of key saves. But the French giants were good value for their win and are now favourites to win the competition for the first time.
Arteta claimed that even the PSG bench agreed the Gunners deserved to go through ahead of their side, something Enrique denied. But the Arsenal boss was adamant in his view of the tie.
“I’m saying that and they are saying that because they (PSG) just told me that,” Arteta said. “First of all, congratulations for being in the final. Talking about merits, I think we deserve much more.
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“When you analyse both games, who has been the best player, the MVP, has been the same player, the goalkeeper. The Champions League is decided in the boxes and it’s won the game for them because obviously today after 20 minutes and what happened in London as well, the result should have been very different.
“So I can take a lot of positives and I’m very proud of the team. The team that I’ve seen today against is probably one of the best, if not the best team in Europe. It gives me so much pride but at the same time I’m so upset, so annoyed that we didn’t manage to do it.”
Arteta raised eyebrows with his comments and former Chelsea and Leicester star Huth has now hit out at the Arsenal boss. The German even believes that they could have a negative effect on the Gunners for the rest of the season.
“Yeah, bit of a ridiculous comment, isn’t it?,” Huth told talkSPORT. “Clearly at least two better than them. I think those kind of comments, you can see why people don’t like Arsenal. If you listen to that from the outside, you find it so frustrating.
“When you lose, you shake hands, move on and wish them all the best and then get on with it. But these comments don’t help. Heat of the moment, bitter maybe, that he’s lost to a better team twice.
“But I find it difficult to understand how he got to that conclusion. Because they were well beaten over two games. Arsenal had chances and Donnarumma did some good saves, but that’s what he’s there for, isn’t it?
” Declan Rice had an unbelievable game in Madrid, but no-one said, ‘You had Declan in your team, that’s why you won.’ I think that kind of conversation you have in the changing rooms with your team afterwards when you think you were better than the other side.
“But to air it to everyone to listen to it globally is wrong. When he says stuff like that, the reason we’re talking about it is because he said it. The next game in the league, there’s even more pressure on the team. With second on the line, teams chasing them down, it’s just going to be even more pressure on Arsenal.”
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