Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain at the semi-final stage but Mikel Arteta raised eyebrows with his post-match comments on the tie
Mikel Arteta has been accused of ‘malfunctioning’ in an interview following Arsenal’s devastating loss to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. The Gunners fell to a 2-1 defeat to get knocked out at the semi-final stage.
But Arsenal boss Arteta was adamant his side performed better across the two legs and only Gianluigi Donnarumma stood between them and a place across from Inter Milan later this month. The north London side suffered losses home and away, but Arteta suggested the PSG camp agreed with him.
The Spaniard left some raised eyebrows across his interviews and saw some pushback in discussions with CBS’s Anita Nneka Jones. And a stilted, more frosty exchange followed as Arteta was probed on his answers.
Arteta said: “First of all, congratulations to PSG. They are in the final.
“It’s not about merits, it’s about what the scoreline shows. This competition is about the [penalty] boxed and, in both games, the man of the match was the goalkeeper.”
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Jones said: “Well, today, it [the Player of the Match] was Achraf Hakimi”.
Arteta added: “Well, I think it was clear who won the game today for them. I just spoke to them and they had the same view on it.
“Very disappointed not to be in the final but we have to accept that the performance is not enough in the end. You have to have the capacity to win the game in the box'”
Looking for clarification, Jones asked: “Who was it that you spoke to?”
Arteta said: “A few people of them [PSG]”.
Jones asked: “And they shared that opinion?”. “All of them,” noted Arteta.
One fan wrote: “Arteta malfunctioning when the interviewer doesn’t buy his excuses.”
“If ever someone cannot handle the truth, it has to be Arteta,” said another. “Fair play to this lass,” commented one user. “She owned him through simple facts.”
“When she started to doubt him, a few of them turned to all of them,” added another.
PSG boss Luis Enrique also pushed back on Arteta’s assessment. “I don’t agree at all.
“Arteta is a great friend, but I don’t agree completely. They played well. They played the way they wanted to. We scored more goals than them. Arsenal played well, we suffered a lot.”
But the Arsenal manager was consistent throughout his media duties. Arteta said: “One hundred per cent there hasn’t been a better team (than Arsenal) in the competition from what I have seen, but we are out.
“When you analyse both games, who has been the best player, the MVP, it has been the same player — the goalkeeper.
“And the Champions League is decided in the boxes and it won the game for them because obviously today after 20 minutes and what happened in London as well, the result should have been very different. So I can take a lot of positives and I’m very proud of the team.
“But at the same time I’m so upset, so annoyed that we didn’t manage to do it. Today I saw how much they want it because they were in tears.”
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