{"id":295817,"date":"2026-02-13T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295817\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:13:08","slug":"it-could-have-been-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295817\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It could have been worse’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mikel Arteta said he was left praying Arsenal would not suffer a late defeat after his players missed the chance to restore their six-point cushion over Manchester City following a 1-1 draw at Brentford<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arsenal appeared on course to take a crucial victory when Noni Madueke headed home in the 61st minute. However, Brentford bounced back just 10 minutes later after Keane Lewis-Potter struck from Michael Kayode’s long throw.<\/p>\n

Cristhian Mosquera stopped Igor Thiago scoring in stoppage time with a fine sliding tackle, before Brentford\u2019s top scorer then blazed over when clean through on David Raya\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

However, Gabriel Martinelli might have won it for Arsenal, only to be denied by Caoimhin Kelleher in a frantic end to the match.<\/p>\n

Brentford were a constant threat from both corners and long throws, and Arteta said: “We scored the goal and the game was under total control.<\/p>\n

“But against them, that\u2019s not enough because they just need somebody making a foul that is unnecessary, a ball in the channel, they push you, the clearance is not good, a throw-in, and then you have to pray because they are exceptional at what they do.<\/p>\n

“The chaos that is in, and around that ball is very, very difficult to defend. We said to the players: ‘If you want to win here, you\u2019re going to have to defend the box with your life\u2019. We didn\u2019t do that on one of the actions, but they deserve credit, too.”<\/p>\n

\"Keane
\nKeane Lewis-Potter of Brentford scores<\/p>\n

Just four days ago at Liverpool, Pep Guardiola\u2019s City were six minutes away from falling nine points behind their rivals, but they are now within striking range.<\/p>\n

And Arsenal, runners-up for the past three seasons, will still have to visit the Etihad Stadium in April.<\/p>\n

Asked if he is concerned the title momentum is shifting towards City, Arteta said: “I understand (the question) but that\u2019s an if, if, if, and if we would have lost to Newcastle, we were eight points behind Liverpool in October.<\/p>\n

“There are a lot of ifs for 10 months in this competition, and you can only focus on what you have to do and try to do that in the best possible way.”<\/p>\n

Pressed on whether his team were under greater pressure having played a day after City cruised to a 3-0 win over Fulham, Arteta added: “I don\u2019t think so. We played after them a few times this season, and we have won. Today was not about that.”<\/p>\n

Arsenal could count themselves fortunate not to play the closing eight minutes with 10 men after Gabriel avoided a second caution for a late tackle on Dango Ouattara.<\/p>\n

Brentford boss Keith Andrews said: “I thought it was a second yellow. And it was in the 82nd minute, so it would have made a bit of difference, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

“It was a performance that was filled with grit, personality, character, ability, and bravery. We were a constant threat, and we played with a real determination to get the three points. And it is fair to say that in the latter stages we were the team that looked the more likely.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikel Arteta said he was left praying Arsenal would not suffer a late defeat after his players missed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-295817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}