Arsene Wenger left Emirates Stadium with some regrets on Tuesday night but his overriding emotion was one of pride.
Arsenal and Everton played out one of the Premier League's more entertaining 0-0 draws, a highly-competitive encounter notable for the expert defending and tireless running of both sides.
Arsenal had chances to take all three points - Olivier Giroud spurned chances in either half - but Wenger was delighted with the work ethic and robustness of his team.
"They made it very physical and we responded very well on that front. But we have regrets because we couldn't take our chances"
"I'm proud of the effort we put in and the battle we have shown tonight," Wenger told Arsenal Player. "We have put physical effort, spirit, determination [in].
"We sometimes lacked a bit of fluency or quality in our finishing. Overall we should have won this game. When you see what they created tonight and what we created, at the end of the game we deserved to win.
"They made it very physical and we responded very well on that front. But we have regrets because we couldn't take our chances.
"I have two regrets," Wenger went on. "When in our finishing positions, we always wanted to use power. Secondly, on our set pieces, I don't think we did enough tonight. We had so many corners and free-kicks. There has to be a goal in there from somebody and that's the regret we have."
Tuesday's result will have been welcomed by Chelsea and Tottenham, both of whom sit two points behind third-placed Arsenal having played fewer games. Everton are four behind the Gunners and Wenger knows the race for Champions League places could go to the wire.
"We are on a very strong run and we are of course a bit frustrated because we dropped two points but we kept our [unbeaten] run going," said Wenger.
"I believe we can gain a lot of confidence from that game to go into the next one and win it. Let's focus on the next one now. It [the top-four race] will be very tight, that's for sure."
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