Mikel Arteta tore into his Arsenal players in the dressing room after they missed out on Champions League qualification by losing to Newcastle in the penultimate game of last season, labelling their performance “f****** embarrassing”.
Arsenal had been in the driving seat to finish in the top four last season but defeat to Newcastle at St. James’ Park in the final week of the season handed the advantage to Tottenham, who the Gunners had also lost to the previous week.
Now footage from Amazon Prime Video’s fly-on-the-wall documentary, ‘All or Nothing: Arsenal’, has revealed Arteta’s frustration at failing to qualify for the Champions League.
In the final episode of the eight-part series, cameras in the St. James’ Park dressing room capture Arteta’s anger as he spoke to his player after a 2-0 defeat.
“It does not matter what I say. It does not matter what you say. Now it’s too late,” Arteta said.
“They were 10,000 times better than us today, in everything. We did not earn the right to play, we did not win a f****** duel, we didn’t win a second ball, we were horrible with the f****** ball and we had no organisation, we had nothing. Nothing.
“So now shut your mouth and eat it. We could have conceded eight goals. If you see the chances you will cry. You will cry at the way that we have competed. Not the way we have competed, we did not compete at all in the game.
“It is f***** embarrassing to come here the way we have done it. Embarrassing. What happened today is f****** unacceptable and if you accept something like this, you live in a different world.
“Don’t worry, I will face the people. Today it is hard to defend you guys. Hard. I will take all the s***, again.
“Don’t worry… But be prepared to start training to beat Everton because we have our fans there. You never know what happens in football they (Tottenham) might lose at Norwich, you don’t know.”
