Interview

Bellerin - We need to take the initiative more

Losing a north London derby is always frustrating - especially when you feel you could have left with at least a point, if not all three.

That is exactly how Hector Bellerin felt following Saturday's defeat at Wembley and this is what he told the media:

on being in the game until the end…

Yes, but we waited too long. In the first half, we were waiting for something to happen. We didn’t create chances, we didn’t have the ball like we should have done and then in the second half we paid for it. We need to take the initiative a bit more, to attack more and keep the ball because we didn’t do that today. In the second half, at the end they were tired, the weren’t pressing as much and we were creating a bit more space so we had chances. It’s a bit frustrating because you could see that we could have gone home with a point or even three. I think we weren’t at the standard required, so it’s something to look at for the next game.

on how difficult it will be to bridge the seven-point gap with Spurs…

There’s still plenty of games to play. There are loads of points still to play for, so we need to look forward. We can’t just be stuck looking back at this game. We need to analyse, need to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes and we’ve still got quite a few games to play. We still need to play some of the big teams in the top six as well, so we’ll see. You never know what can happen in the Premier League.