Arsenal run the risk of bottling the EPL title race should they keep dropping points, but Manager Mikel Arteta thinks otherwise.
When asked if the pressure was getting to his side, Arteta refuted the claims saying the team only failed to do what was required of them.
“When I see a team playing with that flow [at the start of the game], that’s not pressure. At 2-0 we were not under pressure. We just didn’t do what the game required in that moment.’’ He said.
“We could not control what West Ham was proposing [after the first goal]. If you concede two or three goals away from home, it is very difficult to win football matches. We have to blame ourselves with how we played in our boxes.”
Arsenal blew a two-goal lead for a second successive game as West Ham came back and snatched a 2-2 draw at the London Stadium on Sunday.
The Gunners had previously squandered the same advantage in last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Liverpool last Sunday.
On his part, Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard admitted his team did “stupid things” on the ball to let the hosts back in the game.
The Norwegian midfielder also admitted that the Gunners were guilty of repeating their mistakes from the previous week.
“A lot of the same things to last week,” Odegaard said. “We played really well in the beginning, controlled everything and it went the way we wanted. Then we stopped with that.’’
He added, “We gave them a little bit of the game they wanted. We gave them hope when they were basically dead. It’s on us. We started to do a lot of stupid things with the ball and we let them play long balls, they got a lot of throw-ins and corners and we let them play on their qualities.’’
The Gunners are four points clear of second placed Manchester City, whom have already beaten them twice this season, winning 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium in the league in February, just weeks after knocking the Gunners out of the FA Cup with a 1-0 victory in Manchester.