Mikel Arteta was at least right to be wary. Before Arsenal’s trip to Lens, he said he was impressed by the Sang et Or’s last season and feared their reaction at home. He was right because, despite opening the score, his players failed for the first time in this 2023-2024 exercise during a crazy evening of the 2nd day of group B in Bollaert (2-1). “We have no excuse for this defeat“, commented the Arsenal coach soberly after the match.
“First of all, congratulations to Lens, it’s an excellent team, led by a very good coach“, continued Mikel Arteta, whose team had nevertheless taken the match from the right end with a quick goal from Gabriel Jesus which punished an error from the Lensois (14th). The Londoners also held the ball in midfield (68% of possession) and often in the opposing camp but have rarely exploited it well.
“Today we had more control after the first goal scored, and then we had two chances to scoredeplores the Spanish technician who regrets the lack of realism of his players who took six shots on target but also failed twice on the three shots on target from Lens. We should have attacked better, been more pressing. We had several chances but as soon as Elye Wahi had his, he scored“.
“Forbidden to dream small after such a performance”
Concern for Saka
“In the end, the Lensois managed to reverse the situationanalyzes the Arsenal coach who began his European campaign by crushing PSV Eindhoven (4-0) and remained on a similar success in the league against Bournemouth. We didn’t do a good job of defending in our area. We lost, we were punished like we punished PSV. Today, we weren’t good enough in both areass”.
Currently third in the Premier League standings, the English vice-champions are falling from a height after a more than convincing start to the season. Bukayo Saka’s injury exit in the first half clearly hurt them because they lost a large part of their percussion ability. “It’s muscular, we don’t know more at the moment, lamented Arteta after this disappointing evening. It was difficult not having him for the rest of the match and that’s obviously a concern. It doesn’t look good”. This injury also comes just before the big shock against Manchester City for which Arteta will have to find solutions.