Yoopya with Reuters
Feb 25 (Reuters) – Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said his side will not give up on the Premier League title race despite slipping further behind leaders Liverpool after Saturday’s loss to West Ham United, insisting the team have done well despite injuries and setbacks.
“We’re not going to stop. Over my dead body,” Arteta told reporters on Tuesday ahead of their midweek trip to third-placed Nottingham Forest.
Liverpool are 11 points above Arsenal, who have a game in hand.
With forwards Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz out for the season and wingers Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli also sidelined with injuries, second-placed Arsenal face a hill to climb, with Liverpool being unbeaten in the league since September.
“If somebody tells you at the start of the season that you play five times with a red card, over half an hour in each of those games, and you have lost this amount of players… you’re in the middle of the table at least,” Arteta said.
“That’s not the situation. So that tells you the resilience, resources, the ambition the team has.”
Arteta said that in the 15 matches prior to the loss to West Ham, Arsenal had won the exact same number of points as Liverpool.
“We got that defeat and on top of that, they win… it was a hard one to take,” the former Arsenal midfielder said.
“The reality is, there’s so many games to play. And you have to get back to it. And we have the levels, the consistency and the hunger to go again. And that’s what we’re going to do on Wednesday.
“At the end you have certain numbers you have to hit to win in this league and we have to hit that number if we’re going to have any chance.”
Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru Editing by Christian Radnedge