Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta has blamed his entire players for their embarrassing defeat to Newcastle United on Monday night.
Arteta said he can no longer defend his players after they put Tottenham in the driving seat to qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League.
The defeat at St James’ Park means that Mikel Arteta’s side are now two points behind Antonio Conte’s Spurs with one game remaining.
The Gunners host Everton on the last day and would be praying and hoping that Tottenham lose against the relegated Norwich City.
Arteta blasted his team for not being able to match Newcastle in every area in the pitch, saying they looked short of looking like a Champions League side.
“Normally, I can sit here and I can defend, but what we’ve done today, it’s not easy,” the Spaniard told a postmatch press conference.
“Newcastle were one hundred times better than us in every department from the beginning to the end. “It’s hard to accept. But you have to accept it and that’s the reality of what happened today on that pitch.
“We didn’t compete, we never got into the game, we put ourselves in trouble time after time, we lost every duel.”
Arteta said his team were second best to Newcastle in every aspect of the game and that they “totally deserved to win the match, probably by a bigger margin as well.”
Arteta said that before now he normally takes full responsibility for every bad results but not in this case as their appearance in Europe next season is no longer in their hands.
