Arsenal center-back William Saliba has urged his teammates to stay united as they aim to return to winning ways in the Premier League, following their recent setback against Newcastle United, Soccernet.football reports.
The Gunners suffered a 1-0 defeat at St James’ Park, with Alexander Isak’s first-half header securing the win for a determined Newcastle side buoyed by a vibrant home support.
Missing captain Martin Odegaard, Arsenal struggled to find creativity in midfield, with Newcastle effectively neutralizing the attacking threats of Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
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After the match, manager Mikel Arteta admitted Arsenal’s loss was deserved, a view shared by Saliba. The Frenchman could only watch as Isak evaded Gabriel to direct his header past David Raya in the 12th minute.
“We are a bit sad because we wanted to win today,” Saliba told TNT Sports. “But unfortunately we didn’t and we didn’t play the game that we wanted to play. We deserved to lose today, I think.
“We didn’t play how we wanted to pay they were good as well. Today, we don’t deserve to win. But that’s ok. We focus on the next week.”
The Gunners have now gone three games without a win in the Premier League. Before Sunday’s defeat, they had fallen short against Bournemouth before being held by a resilient Nottingham Forest side.
Saliba admitted that Arsenal could have done better in order to prevent Isak’s goal and challenged his teammates to pull together in order to string together a run of more positive results.
“It’s a good goal, a good cross, good finishing. But we can always do better. Today, they scored early goal and we wanted to equalise,” he said.
“We have to stick together, last season we had a period like this and we stuck together and had the confidence to get on. We believe that it will come back.
“We have to be better than the last game. I wasn’t very good then, so I have to be back at my good level. But I have to get back to my best level.”
