English Premier League: Mikel Arteta denies accusations of playing with “dark arts”

Mikel Arteta, The Arsenal manager, has responded to the accusations that have poured in from Manchester City that his team is competing with “Dark arts “and” dirty style”.

“I always prefer facts to words or assumptions… Let’s see who is available tomorrow. Then we can talk about the “dark arts” or those things. That’s the reality, ” in an apparent reference to the accusations of the City players.

Mikel Arteta defends Arsenal’s defensive tactics with 10 players against Manchester City

The Spanish technician defended Arsenal’s defensive bet on the Etihad Stadium to try to maintain a 1-2 advantage with numerical inferiority after the dismissal of Leandro trossard:”let’s play how we should play”.

We have to play the way we have to play

Mikel Arteta

“The first 10, 15 minutes we could not 11 against 11. Then we improved a lot. Then we saw ourselves in a completely different context and did what every team does…. They (City) played for 30 seconds with 10 men. Look what they did during those 30 seconds. It’s normal what they did. We had to do it differently”.

In the second part Arsenal had only 12.5 % of possession against City , with 35 assists compared to 363 for Guardiola’s team.

We learned from the past. Unfortunately we have been in the same situation many times. It’s better to learn. If not, it would be silly, very silly

Mikel Arteta

Arteta stressed that ” we have learned from the past. Unfortunately we have been in the same situation many times. We were in the same situation with Chaka in the 38th minute and lost 5-0. It’s better to learn. If not, then it would be very silly and ridiculous.”