Mikel Arteta chastised his Arsenal players for “unacceptable” defending after they required a last-minute goal to beat Wolves at home on Saturday night.Â
The Gunners made hard work of the 20th-placed team in the Premier League and it took a freak own goal from Sam Johnstone to break the deadlock in the second half.
Bukayo Saka’s looping corner smacked off the post before hitting the back of the goalkeeper’s head and landing in the goal.
Victory was on the horizon for the hosts until Tolu Arokodare headed home from substitute Mateus Mane’s dangerous cross in the final minute of normal time.
Wolves would go on to put the ball in the net once more before the final whistle, but unfortunately for them it was in their own net again as Yerson Mosquera inadvertently diverted Saka’s 94th-minute cross past Johnstone.
Arteta was a relieved man afterwards, but he refused to put a positive spin on a lacklustre performance from his team.
“I don’t put it down to the resilience… we should have stopped the source before,” he said.
“You have to give credit to Wolves. I knew that wasn’t going to be an easy game but we made it even harder with the manner we conceded the goal. And that’s unacceptable.”
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Arteta slams ‘unacceptable’ Arsenal defending against Wolves
The Arsenal boss was critical of both his defence for being too passive in the buildup to the equaliser and his attack for not shutting down the game earlier.
“It is [all about the three points], but we knew it was going to be a tough match. Especially if we didn’t score early in the game. We had one big chance with (Gabriel) Martinelli two yards out, totally free, and didn’t score.
“But we struggled once we arrived into the danger zones to pick out red shirts in the box. We had many situations like that. And then we didn’t generate many clear chances, in the second half we did that a bit better and then scored the goal.
“But then we had a period of three minutes, [sat] in deep, so passive, really poor defensive habits, not acceptable for our level.
“We didn’t concede a single shot up that point. The first time they do it, they score a goal. That is the Premier League, we need to be aware of that and improve on that because we relied on one individual, chaotic action to win the game and the margin should have been bigger.”
He added:Â “We created a lot of situations without picking out the right player in the final pass. The amount of situations that we had an overload in the box and we hit the first man, it is not the standards that we need to generate more.
“I was not surprised [by Wolves]. I watched them at Chelsea and what they did against Villa and how unlucky they were not to get a result there. I was expecting that if we didn’t manage to score early, we would suffer.”
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