After a barren draw against Crystal Palace at rhe Emirates, Mikel Arteta admitted after the game that Arsenal missed Kieran Tierney’s attacking threat on the left flank.
The left back mised out on the clash at the Emirates with a calf problem and Arteta confirmed the Scot will have an MRI scan tomorrow to assess the extent of the damage.
He faced the camera after the match and had this to say.
On what was missing this evening…
Some freshness and some quality in the final third. We generated a lot of entrances in the final third but without big, big chances. We developed a lot of situations where we lacked the last pass or the timing or the last shot. Probably we had to generate more to win that game.
On whether he expected more from his players…
I’d have liked to see a win today and to score a few goals but it didn’t happen. There were moments when fatigue played a big moment when we started to give very difficult balls away when we were completely free. We gave the ball away and allowed the transitions to Palace, which is probably what they do best. I cannot fault the spirit and the fight they put in, they tried until the last minute with that chance we had with the wide free-kick, but it wasn’t enough today.
On missing Kieran Tierney…
Yeah, he’s a real threat with the way we are playing and the way we attack on that left side. He’s a really important player. We didn’t have him, he’s injured and we have to find other solutions.
On whether he’ll be back for the next game…
I don’t know. It depends how he evolves. He’s going to have an MRI scan tomorrow and we’ll see how he is.
On expecting this type of performance from a Hodgson side…
Absolutely, he’s done it all through his career and very successfully. That’s why they’ve beaten big teams in recent years, the way they’ve done it [tonight]. We knew what we had to do, we knew the plan but the execution and the quality today was not there to win the game.
On whether he has a lack of depth in his squad…
No. A lot of Premier League teams are in the same position. I think we lost four players in the last week with injuries. These are going to happen. Some others that haven’t played much have to step in, it’s what it is. The schedule is crazy, it’s still going to be crazy, so we have to adapt.
