After falling to our first Champions League defeat of the season on Wednesday night, Mikel Arteta faced the media at Stadio San Siro.
He was asked about the team’s performance, his view on whether we should have had a penalty, and provided an update on Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino.
On his assessment of the game…
The worst thing of the night, for sure, is the result, because the performance, the attitude, the dominance that we showed against one of the best teams in Europe in this stadium, I haven’t seen it in all the other games that I’ve watched but the reality is the result and we participated in that because we had many situations that we can resolve much better in front of goal and score at least two goals and then extremely frustrated as well because there are two decisions that at the end marks the result and the course of the game.
On the two penalty decisions for both teams…
I don’t understand [the decision], it’s just a deflection, there is no danger at all, you cannot react because you are very close but ok, they decide that is a penalty. But then if that’s a penalty then the one on Mikel Merino when he punches him in the head has to be 1000% a penalty and these are the margins in this game and it’s very very difficult to accept.
On whether he feels we failed to create enough chances…
The concern tonight is the result and obviously in both boxes at the end we didn’t do what we have to do. When we didn’t, then someone else didn’t and that’s it. For sure, this is the way that I want to see my team. All the big games that we have in Europe by far this was the best one that we played in the last few years.
On how much the penalty decisions decided the game…
There’s nothing unfortunately that we can do, we are not going to be able to change it so, unfortunately, we have to accept it and move on.
On the handball rule and Havertz’s injury…
We were told at the start of the season that wasn’t a penalty, that was clear. Today was a different story. Regarding Kai, yeah, he’s got a big cut. He needed to come off because he needed some stitches, but hopefully he’s going to be okay for the weekend.
On whether Merino came off due to injury…
He was not concussed. But yesterday and today he was already not feeling great. After, when I looked at him, I decided to take him off because I need him 100%.
On why the referee spoke to him in the second half…
It was a private, interesting conversation.
On whether it will be difficult to pick the players up for Chelsea…
