Arteta Says Arsenal’s 3-3 Draw With West Ham Will Give Him ‘Nightmares’ Despite Second-half Fightback

Mikel Arteta says Arsenal’s draw with West Ham is going to give him “nightmares”.

The Gunners drew 3-3 with West Ham, but only after they had been 3-0 down inside the first 32 minutes.

Arsenal were all over the place early on, allowing the Hammers to run riot, and they had to stage a heroic comeback to salvage a point.

They managed to do so, with Alexandre Lacazette scoring an 82nd-minute equaliser, but Arteta confessed the game will give him sleepless nights.

“This game is going to give me a few nightmares because it is really difficult to stop some of the things we have been doing to hurt ourselves,” he told the BBC.

“The first goal is something they do really well – the second and third goal, and the chance at the end, is unacceptable. We didn’t look at the races.

“That is the level we can show, the other is top level and probably the best we play all season – we could have scored six or seven goals and won the game, but we cannot have two faces.

“We stuck to the plan we had because we were getting further away from that, we started to play much better and I have faith in the boys they are not going to give the game away. We had the belief we could do something.”

Arteta was pleased with the way his side did respond in the end and he thought the final hour was exceptional.

He added: “We showed a face that we still have that is that face and then after that for the next 60 minutes, we probably played the best I have seen us play probably in very tough conditions when a team could collapse, have bad body language, start to blame each other and concede four, five or six, we did completely the opposite.

“We started to do what we had to do, we got better and better and it’s a shame because looking at the chances, we could have scored six or seven.

“I am not worried about the culture because we have come so far on that and I have seen so many positive things to be consistent with what I’m saying.

“Today was one of those again because I have seen before completely different reactions, with each other as a team, the belief the energy. I am not worried about that. I am worried about the levels we can show within a game and that’s where I think we are still far from the top teams.”

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