Mikel Arteta blasts Arsenal players for 'horrible' and 'unacceptable' defending despite Wolves win | OneFootball

Gunners nearly threw away all three points late on at the Emirates Stadium after being gifted a lead

Arteta, however, was not happy with the performance after his side so nearly threw away all three points.

The Gunners rallied to get the win they craved against the Premier League’s worst team this season, however Arteta was unhappy with how his side saw out the game.

“It was a relief, but a very clear understanding that the margin should have been bigger,” said Arteta.

“And after not being precise enough in the first half with the amount of situations that we generated inside the opposition box, and we didn’t pick the right colour of shirt in so many occasions, we had an overload, clearly to do that.

“We had to improve in the second half in relation to that. I think we did it, we generated more chances to score a goal.

“But after we had a period of two or three minutes [sitting] in deep, totally passive, with horrible defensive habits.

“That is nowhere near the level that is required against a team that hasn’t had a single shot.

“The first time that they had the opportunity to do it, they scored the goal, and this is the Premier League.

“Unfortunately, we are relieved because we managed to score a goal at the end and go on winning - but we need to improve in that sense for sure.

“We can manage the result in a certain way, but it has to be in ourselves.

This is how Mikel Arteta reacted to Arsenal’s winning goal

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“And we can defend deep, because they commit a lot of players, and there’s a moment that you cannot press them, that’s fine.

“But the level of activity in that block has to be very different to the one that we had.

“You have to give credit to Wolves and what they’ve done, I watched the game when they played at Stamford Bridge, when they played against Villa and how unlucky they were not to get a result. So I knew that that wasn’t going to be an easy game at all.

"But we made it even harder with what we did in the manner that we conceded the goal - and that’s unacceptable.”