Mikel Arteta fires back at Erik ten Hag’s injury comments after Arsenal crash out of Europe
Mikel Arteta, the manager of Arsenal, has responded to Erik ten Hag’s remarks about their fitness that were made earlier this week.
Arsenal, who were leading the Premier League, were eliminated from European competition last night after a penalty shootout loss to Sporting Lisbon.
According to talkSPORT, Erik ten Hag implied that Mikel Arteta had the luxury of fielding a nearly full-strength team while he, in his first season at Old Trafford, had to manage a squad with limited options when discussing Alejandro Garnacho’s recent injury problems before Manchester United’s Europa League win over Real Betis.
However, Arsenal then suffered two injuries to Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba during their match against Sporting, and some may argue that they will use these injuries as excuses for their elimination from the competition.
Arteta spoke to reporters after the match and appeared to try and shift the focus away from the loss by highlighting the injury issues his team has faced throughout the season. This could be interpreted as an attempt to deflect from the result of the match against Sporting Lisbon.
“We’ve been carrying injuries throughout the campaign,” Arteta said, as quoted by Goal.
“We had Emile [Smith Rowe] out for four months, [Gabriel] Jesus out for four months, Alex [Zinchenko] for two-and-a-half months, Thomas [Partey] for a month and a half, Eddie [Nketiah] for a month and a half. We had quite a lot of injuries already, but we desalt with that.”
The larger context is that Arteta has been the manager of Arsenal for over three years, which has given him considerably more time to build and shape his squad compared to Erik ten Hag, who is still in the early stages of his rebuilding project at Manchester United.
Despite any criticisms, it’s worth noting that Arsenal is currently leading the Premier League by five points over Manchester City.
Mikel Arteta fires back at Erik ten Hag’s injury comments after Arsenal crash out of Europe
