Mikel Arteta was understandably disappointed after we were beaten by Manchester City on Wednesday evening.
Beside the result, we also suffered injuries to two players and had another sent off.
Afterwards, our head coach faced the media and this is what he told them:
on Mesut Ozil being left out of the matchday squad…
It was a tactical reason. I needed players in other positions as well and that’s why I decided to leave him out.
on David Luiz’s contract situation…
I don’t know what will happen with his contract. I know what happened today, I know the way that David reacted. I know him well, not only as a player but as a person as well. He can handle these situations and it was a reason why I didn’t select him from the start and he had to play because Pablo got injured. He is always going to try to give you his best with the condition that he’s at and he’s tried again, but it didn’t work out for him or the team. That’s it.
on Pablo Mari and Granit Xhaka's injuries...
They are getting assessed at the moment then we will know something more tomorrow morning. Pablo's one didn't look very good to be fair.
on playing behind closed doors and the squad's taking a knee pre-match...
All the surroundings are completely different to what we are used to but we have to adapt. We are playing football again which is what we love to do and hopefully helping people with that and today's game we have a lot of conditions, one of them we did just before the game. I think it is a very strong message. I think it is creating a very unique message around the world, what we are trying to achieve. I think some behaviours are going to change hopefully. We've seen the things that are happening and if we can contribute to that a little bit then great.
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