Arteta - We have to be very critical of ourselves

Five wins in our final five Premier League games was not enough to secure European football for next season.

Despite a strong run of form and a final-day win over Brighton & Hove Albion, we missed out on the Europa Conference League by one point.

And Mikel Arteta is already focused on how we can best bounce back from disappointment next season.

"I'm sad because this club deserves to be delivered trophies and the Champions League. We haven't managed that," he said. "It's not been enough. We have to be very critical of ourselves, of myself, and then prepare the best possible way for next season to take advantage of that. Hopefully we can have the pre-season that I haven't had, and have time to work with those players and try to be a better team.

"Other teams are going to get better and they're going to strengthen, so we need to get better. First of all, we have to get our players better, more consistent and help them to improve. All our way of playing, our philosophy, I think is in place.

"They buy into that and now is the moment to take it to the next level, to improve that and improve our consistency because since December to now, we've shown that we're the second or third-best team in the league. It's not enough. Six months, the level is high, so we need to do that for 10 months.

"What I can say is that when I watch the team a few months ago and when I watch them now, regardless of the result, in my opinion we are in a much better place and we will be in a much better place.

"That's the step but as well we now need to identify that the level is now so high that the only way to do it is to be much better next season, much more consistent and that's the challenge ahead of us."