Mikel Arteta refuses to defend Arsenal players after Newcastle defeat

The Gunners have now put Tottenham in the driving seat to qualify for a Champions League place as the loss at St James’ Park means they are two points behind their north London rivals with one game remaining.

Arsenal, who host Everton on the final day, now require Spurs to lose against Norwich City on Sunday to stand any chance of finishing fourth in the Premier League.

But Arteta admitted after the defeat to Newcastle that his side looked well short of looking like a Champions League team.

‘It’s a really tough night,’ Arteta said.

‘Normally, I can sit here and I can defend, but what we’ve done today, it’s not easy.

‘Newcastle were one hundred times better than us in every department from the beginning to the end and it’s hard to accept to accept, but you have to accept it and that’s the reality of what happened today on that pitch.

‘We knew [the significance of the game] but we didn’t cope with it.

‘We didn’t compete, we never got into the game, we put ourselves in trouble time after time, we lost every duel.

‘Every aspect of the game we were second best and Newcastle totally deserved to win the match, probably by a bigger margin as well.’

‘I am the maximum responsible [person] all the time. If somebody has created an expectation this year that no one in this room probably would talk about at the start of this season, it’s those players that are there.

‘I will always defend them. But tonight that’s a really, really difficult thing to do.’

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