Palace loss ‘not good enough’ for Arsenal-Arteta

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta apologised for his side’s performance in their surprise defeat at Crystal Palace and accepted it was not good enough for the north London club.

The visitors had gone into the game looking to move back into the top four and strengthen their hopes of Champions League football.

“It is time to accept the criticism, put your hand up and apologise because this performance was not good enough for this club, but then react,” Arteta said.

“From the beginning we were not at the races. When you come here you have to compete, you have to win duels and second balls and be aggressive and we were none of those.”

The Gunners would have moved above rivals Tottenham with victory or even a draw but fell behind early on through Jean-Philippe Mateta’s header following a free-kick.

The victory, Palace’s first at home in the league in 2022, moves them up to ninth while Arsenal remain fifth and outside the top four on goal difference, albeit with a game in hand.

Arsenal have that game in a hand over Tottenham, so still have the opportunity to make amends for this poor performance and recent form suggests this display was an outlier.

However, Arteta knows they will need to show significant improvement in the coming games to ensure they end the season in the top four, particularly after Spurs thrashed Newcastle 5-1 on Sunday.

Palace manager Patrick Vieira is a club legend at Arsenal following many years of dominating the middle of the park for the Gunners, and he came within seconds of a famous win at the home of his former side in October.

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