Interview

'We didn't show enough quality'

Mikel Arteta
Mikel Arteta

Mikel Arteta offered no excuses for the team's performance on Sunday evening, which saw us exit the Emirates FA Cup at the third-round stage for only the second time in the past 26 years.

We were below par for the duration of the tie at Nottingham Forest's City Ground, eventually going down 1-0 to a late Lewis Grabban goal.

"We didn't have enough quality to penetrate in the right areas," Arteta told Arsenal Media at full-time. "To get the ball into their final third and create danger and be incisive and attack the right spaces with a different level of determination. When that happens it is difficult to score goals."

Arteta also explained that he was without nine 'regular players' for the game, due to international commitments, illness, injury and suspension, but he would not elaborate more on plans to strengthen during the transfer window:

"We have what we have [available] and we know we have issues in many different positions.

"But we try to put out the most competitive team that we could today to try to win and it wasn't good enough

"We have the players to perform better than what they've done today and we have the level to beat them if we are at our maximum and today we didn't have that."

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