Odegaard – we need to get sharper in front of goal

Mikel Arteta was keen to look at the bigger picture after we suffered our first home defeat of the season on Thursday evening.

Despite dominating for most of the match, and setting a new Premier League record for most touches in the opposition penalty box without scoring (77), we fell to a 2-0 reverse to West Ham United at Emirates Stadium.

The result leaves us in second place in the Premier League, exactly halfway through the season, two points behind leaders Liverpool, and the boss reiterated that there is plenty to fight for in the second half of the campaign.

“I think we’ve been very, very consistent, especially with performances,” he said. “We could have had more points for different reasons. But it’s where we are and as well we are through in the Champions League in a really convincing way.

“We have managed three and a half months with some big injuries as well and that’s credit to the boys, so I’m really happy with what they’re doing. We can improve, yes, we want to evolve, yes, and that will be the target for the next coming games.”

He added that there was obvious disappointment from losing our unbeaten home record this season, but drew encouragement from the amount of chances we created against the Hammers.

“I’m very proud of our players with the performance that they put in again, but the difference was made in both boxes.

“We have two situations to defend, with the penalty three, and they weren’t good enough and then we generated a huge amount of situations, chances and shots.

“I think it is our record in terms of touches in the box in the Premier League, and we still haven’t scored a goal.

“So hopefully that won’t happen again and it’s really unlikely to happen, but the team kept trying and they did everything they could to win the game and I don’t think that this scoreline reflects actually what happened on that pitch.”

When asked what he put our profligacy in front of goal down to, he replied: “It’s for a lot of different reasons.

“There were big situations that is incredible that we don’t put it in the net or that they did really well blocking certain shots.

“Sometimes we didn’t pick the right pass or the centimetres of the smallest spaces in the box, there was a combination of all, but again I have to praise the players because they tried and they kept trying right up until the end.

“If they will continue to play like that, it is very unlikely that it will happen again

“I just told them ‘Listen, we’re disappointed we lost at home. We have to go now to Fulham and play better if possible than today and win the game and that’s it.”

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