New Jersey [US], July 23 : Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta dwelled on the positives after his revamped side fell short against their fierce rivals Manchester United in their pre-season game at the MetLife Stadium on Sunday.
Arsneal's entire game reeked of 'individual errors' that gave their opponents a window of opportunity to pounce upon. The latest recruits of the Gunners, Declan Rice, Jai Havertz and Jurrien Timber played alongside skipper Martin Odegaard to reignite Arsenal's hopes of clinching the Premier League title after falling short in the 2022/23 campaign.
Young English goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale let a shot from the newly appointed skipper Bruno Fernandes get past him quite easily. While defender Gabriel Magalhaes missed clearance and allowed Jadon Sancho to convert a goal out of nowhere to seal off the game for the Red Devils.
However, despite a string of individual errors unfolding on the pitch which led to a 2-0 loss, Arteta saw some signs of promise.
"When they play 55 times together, it will be better, it will flow better, they will understand each other better and we will be more dominant. But things take time to glide, and we have to respect that," said Arteta as quoted by Sky Sports.
"I saw a lot of positive things, things I really like much more than the game that we won [against the MLS All-Stars] although the result is very different. That information is that there are a lot of things to improve, how important the boxes are as always - because if Gabriel Martinelli put the two chances he has away we go 2-0 up and probably it would be a bit different," Arteta added.
Arteta further went on to cut some slack off his players by affirming that errors are a part of the game but the players have to learn to overcome them. But he admitted that it 'hurts' to lose against their rivals even though it is a pre-season game.
"That errors are part of football and you have to overcome them as well. And a test to see as well how painful it is to lose a football match even if it's a test match. I want to see those players hurting and then as well how the team reacts after a defeat, which is a good test as well. Overall, they had their moments where they were more efficient, we had ours. We had more dominance. We certainly had our chances in the second half, but the chances that we had we didn't convert them and they won the game," Arteta signed off.
Arsenal will play their next pre-season game against FC Barcelona on Thursday while Manchester United will go head-to-head against Wrexham on Wednesday.
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