‘It’s unacceptable’: Arteta has blunt message for Arsenal players following Aston Villa defeat

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has delivered a blunt message to his players following the heavy loss to Aston Villa last night.

The Gunners were comfortably seen off by Dean Smith’s men and struggled to make any sort of impact on the game. A home loss is always hard to take, and Arteta was clearly annoyed with what he saw.

Speaking after the game to the club’s official website, the Gunners boss was in no mood to dress it up, and called his players’ attitude into question for the first time this season.

“Big teams can’t afford that. We cannot afford that. You win a football match, two football matches, three. We expect to win every game and this is the standard that we have to set. So if someone believes that winning one or two games is good enough, they’re completely wrong and I’m not going to accept that.

“I think that since I arrived here, it’s the first time that I’ve felt that we performed really under our standards and what we are trying to set at this football club. It’s unacceptable.”

The loss for Arsenal was a big set back for Arteta given the positive performance at Man United last week and the Europa League win over Molde in midweek.

A number of big players didn’t perform again, while Arsenal also lost Thomas Partey to injury. It remains to be seen when the Ghana ace will return to action.

Big words but no messing from Arteta here – TBR View

There’s no need to panic if you’re an Arsenal fan and at least comments like this show the boss cares and he saw exactly what fans did yesterday.

Arsenal have so much talent in the squad but that gets nothing without application. Villa, in a nutshell, showed them up on that front.

It’s a big two weeks now for Arteta with the international break so it will be interesting to see how the squad reacts upon its return to PL action ahead of the busy Christmas period.