Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was left frustrated that his side “gave the game” to Manchester City as the Gunners were leapfrogged by the champions at the top of the table.
Arsenal failed to win for the fourth game running as goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland earned City a 3-1 win at the Emirates.
Pep Guardiola’s side took the lead against the run of play when De Bruyne finished magnificently after latching onto Takehiro Tomiyasu’s under-hit back pass but the hosts deservedly levelled through Bukayo Saka’s penalty following a foul on Eddie Nketiah by Ederson.
City were far stronger after the interval and Grealish and Haaland finished slick moves against a jittery Gunners defence.
Asked if he felt the defeat was self-inflicted, Arteta said: “That’s the frustration.
“It’s exceptionally difficult to play at the level that they require you to play to have the chance to win. We’ve done it and in many moments we had them. But if you give three goals away the way we did, [you] just give them the game and especially if you don’t put the big chances we had away
“The margin for error with them is almost zero. It’s a shame because we really had them.
“[We have to] just move on and realise why we lost the game. And we lost it, I think. We lost it. And we have to move on. Because the performance was there in many situations and for our team to play at the level that we have to play to reach.
Arsenal errors gifted Man City two goals at the Emirates
“It’s very difficult, the boys did exceptionally well. The atmosphere was just incredible and it’s a shame we didn’t get the points.
“We did a lot of simple things wrong, a lot of restarts where we put ourselves in trouble. Gabriel was out and we played a quick free-kick and suddenly we’re in trouble and then we gave it away in areas where it’s impossible against them if you don’t want to be threatened in your goal.”
De Bruyne scored for the first time since October with a magnificent first time lob over Aaron Ramsdale after Tomiyasu’s sloppy ball back to the goalkeeper.
“I don’t know if it’s experience,” added Arteta. “Or if it’s bad luck. I’ve never seen Tomiyasu make that back pass in seven years and he did it today. It’s part of it and obviously they had the quality to punish it.”
City moved ahead of Arsenal on goal-difference but Arteta’s side still have a game in hand over his former club.
Asked if losing top spot could be a psychological blow, the Spaniard said: “Psychologically there is a marathon still out there. So psychologically it’s very far.
“I said it three months ago and I said it today, it’s about tomorrow. The most important thing is how we are tomorrow and focus on that because the rest of the things, we don’t know what is going to happen.”
