Mikel Arteta spoke to the media after our 3-1 defeat to West Ham United in the Carabao Cup, as our run in the competition came to an end at the fourth-round stage.
The boss was asked about various topics, including his team selection, Emile Smith Rowe's injury and using this defeat as motivation for Saturday's match against Newcastle.
Here is everything he had to say:
On his assessment of the game:
I'm very disappointed. Obviously I'm responsible for that, we are out of the cup and we wanted to play a very different game, and especially we wanted to compete in a game like this, which we discussed for 48 hours, in a very different way to what we've done.
On if he brought on senior players at the end to send a message:
There are no messages to send. Whatever messages we send, we send them with words, we don't have to send them in a different way. We have tried to put out the team that we believed was the best to try to compete today in the right way to start the game, and the game took a different direction obviously because of the first goal and we can discuss that, but after that we still have to see much more from the team to earn the right to win in a place like this.
On how disappointing the performance was:
First of all, there's disappointment with myself, because obviously I wanted the team to play in a very different way and we haven't managed to do that and every time that you lose a game, the pain is there and we have to use this pain for Saturday, that's for sure.
On Aaron Ramsdale receiving pressure from the West Ham crowd:
That is the situation. Obviously the crowd can react in the way that they do, every player tries to do their best and that's it.
On Smith Rowe's injury:
He's got an injury in his knee and he's going to be out for weeks.
On if the first West Ham goal would have been ruled out by VAR:
Yeah, for sure. If there's VAR, then there's no goal, that's for sure, but I understand that for the referee it's difficult because the angle and the amount of people that are there affects the game. But again, I don't want to use that as an excuse, we can still compete on the goal much better than we did, and be in better positions, but obviously that takes something from the game which is very important, which is momentum.
On if we can use this defeat to motivate us:
What it shows you is that in football what matters is the day, what you did three days ago it’s irrelevant, what is going to happen tomorrow is going to be the most important thing, and again we have to use this defeat to prepare the best way to go to Newcastle and win.
On if we lack physicality without William Saliba and Declan Rice:
Obviously there are different players that bring something different to the table but it’s not about that, it’s about a lot of simple things that we didn’t do well at all today. Some of them were competing, some were duels, 50/50’s but a lot of giveaways we have in areas that we didn’t allow us in any moment to be a threat in the final third and that’s something we have to improve dramatically from today.
On using players who haven't played many minutes:
You have to be fair on the players, some players haven’t had that many minutes, it wasn’t to do it straight away in the first game, in a different conversation surrounded by players that haven’t started is not a fair assessment, but that’s something that is further from the assessment is about doing certain things that have to be required to win a football match especially when you play away from home against West Ham and today we haven’t done that good enough.
On the reception Declan Rice received from the West Ham supporters:
No and it’s not for me to judge that.
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